Dragon Age: The Veilguard review for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

BioWare’s history as a developer is a wild ride, with a number of huge successes, but in the past 7 years or so they’ve been struggling to find their footing. Granted, current day BioWare isn’t the same as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic BioWare, but they’ve still tried to stick to the franchises and core gameplay mechanics that people have associated with their games for years. Unfortunately, Mass Effect: Andromeda didn’t fare too hot with both critics and fans, and then there’s Anthem, which was just recently unseated by Concord as one of the biggest live service failures in the past decade.

So, if you were feeling a little wary about the recent release of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I completely understand. I was in the same camp, I definitely wanted to see another Dragon Age game, but I also didn’t want an Andromeda style situation either. Thankfully, having played through The Veilguard over the past couple of weeks, I have good news! This is the closest BioWare has managed to get to their prime Mass Effect-era in quite some time. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is really good, and gives me some hope that BioWare is on the right track again.

While it’s been a while since I’ve played any Dragon Age title, what with it being a decade since Inquisition was released on PS4 and Xbox One, I didn’t have much trouble getting acclimated to the universe once again. It helps that the game starts off with at least one friendly, memorable face in the role of Verric, who takes on a sort of mentor slash narrator role this time around. From there you’ll create Rook, using one of the more impressive character creator systems I’ve ever seen. Along with customizing your look, you’ll also select from a few different classes, and from there you’ll start off on your adventure.

While Inquisition was criticized for offering up a ridiculous amount of tiny side quests and map spam early on, The Veilguard certainly dials that back quite a bit. As such, the intro missions feel like they take a bit too long, but once you get access to your base and the ability to freely explore more locations, you’ll start to forget about all that. There’s a lot to uncover in The Veilguard, and this time around the side quests feel meaningful and interesting, giving lots of background lore to your party characters, the world around you, and the enemies you’re facing off against.

Playing on PC, this is a really sharp looking game overall. The PC version feels particularly well polished, and while your mileage may vary depending on your set-up, it definitely feels like a well-optimized experience which is unfortunately rare to see on AAA PC releases that launch in conjunction with their console counterparts. If you have the option to crank up all the dials on this one, I’d certainly recommend it.

Again, there’s a lot to Dragon Age: The Veilguard that feels familiar if you’ve been a BioWare fan for the past 20 years. The combat isn’t too evolved from prior systems. You’ll have a three person party at your control, with two characters that act independently from Rook but can be directed to target different opponents when necessary. Each character has access to a number of spells or abilities, and some of those will chain together with others, allowing you to set-up big hits if you pair together the correct combo of moves. It’s not a mindblowing concept compared to other BioWare titles, but it’s still super satisfying to pull off.
Exploration takes a bit to unfold in The Veilguard, but once you start to gain access to more party members and the necessary abilities to progress through various points in the world, checking out every nook and cranny on the map does feel important and fun. Likewise, while you can certainly stick to the main questline if you want, all the side quests and companion quests I took on were interesting and well done, a far cry from some of the content found in Inquisition.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the skill tree for your main character, which branches off into multiple paths that allow you to specialize in certain abilities, changing up the role of your initial class if you choose to go that route. There’s a number of abilities and weapons in the game that are focused on elements, or functions like a bleeding effect, so you may want to swap around the skill tree a bit depending on what you pick up. This is easily done through the skill menu, which allows you to refund your points at any time with no penalty. There’s a lot of skills and abilities to play around with, which was great to see. Your companions also have skill trees as well, but not quite as detailed, which focused in on their specific abilities and attributes that generally remain the same throughout the game.

I’ve really enjoyed my time with Dragon Age: The Veilguard, outside of the somewhat slow start early on. Once the game opens up, there’s a lot of things to discover, and I greatly enjoyed the characters, voice acting, and just the overall presentation of the game throughout. It’s a huge step forward for BioWare at this point, and shows some promise for whatever they have in store for us next. Definitely check it out when you get the chance, you won’t be disappointed.

Note: Electronic Arts provided us with a Dragon Age: The Veilguard PC code for review purposes.