My biggest question about Dragon Age: The Veilguard is actually 'Which of these mages is going to lie right to my face and stab me in the back after 80 hours?'

GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age: The VeilguardMy biggest question about Dragon Age: The Veilguard is actually ‘Which of these mages is going to lie right to my face and stab me in the back after 80 hours?‘When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Electronic Arts, BioWare)

Dragon Age: The Veilguard - Neve Gallus meets Rook and smiles while surrounded by magical ice

Beware of spoilers for games which are 10, 13, and 15 years old and whose endings you’ve likely already seenmany memes about.

After so many years of waiting to hear anything of substance,Dragon Age: The Veilguardis all of the sudden almost here. BioWare is fire-hosing information at us—about itsaction-y combat,pansexual companions, and “mission-based” exploration—but there’s one thing we reallyshouldbe asking ourselves right now: Which one of these mages is going to betray my ass in the third act?

The pattern wasn’t obvious immediately. As far as betrayals go, Morrigan’s “dark ritual” at the end of Dragon Age: Origins almost doesn’t even register as one. She doesn’t even lie to your face about it and tells you straight up that she wants to conceive some mysterious “old god” child with a Grey Warden. It’s just that she kinda dips after you kill the Archdemon and shows up two games later with her maybe-antichrist child trying to act like that’s not suspicious.

It was all right there in front of my face.(Image credit: Electronic Arts, BioWare)

Dragon Age: Inquisition - reveal art of party members

Adding insult to injury, it turns out that BioWare telegraphed Solas’ turn as early as some of the game’s marketing art (above). In the reveal of Inquisition’s companions, the party is displayed in a Last Supper style arrangement with Solas taking the place of Judas. At the time, more attentive minds than minedid predict his betrayal, even.

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These aren’t even half the times that your party members can totally throw you overboard in the series. The Dragon Age gameslovea good betrayal. Alistair keeps a pretty big secret from you in Origins, as does The Iron Bull in Inquisition. In DA2, Isabela runs off with a plot critical item right in the middle of the game and only comes back to help clean up the mess if you’ve got a high enough relationship with her.

At this rate, it’s not just a question of which party member is going to betray me, but how many?

Could the resident art history majors please chime in if there’s a clue here? Thanks.(Image credit: EA)

The party members of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Though no class remains blameless in this series, mages are always the fulcrum of the plot and seem most likely to wield my credulity against me. Based on the list of companions for Veilguard, here are our prime suspects:

It won’t be Solas. He’s already gotten his chance. Not only that, but BioWare changing the game’s name from Dreadwolf to Veilguard, and the very early-game confrontation between him and Rook’s party shownduring the gameplay reveal, suggests he won’t be the culprit again.

Maybe BioWare is going to hang up the old trick of the last minute rug pull, but in a series that’s always been full of complex people with conflicting agendas, I’m watching for the knife in my back either way.

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard

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Morrigan, the Witch of the Wilds in the Dragon Age serries, shown wielding magic in front of a Darkspawn.

After years of holding out hope, 2024 was the year I finally gave up on BioWare

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