With Veilguard, Dragon Age becomes what it was probably always destined to be: A Mass Effect game

GamesRPGDragon AgeDragon Age: The VeilguardWith Veilguard, Dragon Age becomes what it was probably always destined to be: A Mass Effect gameWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: EA)

A lineup of heroes from Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Here, let me relieve you. After spending about an hour watching some very tired BioWare developers navigate the opening of the next Dragon Age at this year’s Summer Game Fest, I can assure you that the weird, hero-shooter tone ofthat companion reveal trailerdoesn’t carry into the game itself.

No sir, Dragon Age: The Veilguard (née Dreadwolf) doesn’t have much time for japes at all. Things are grim. Dark.Fraught, even. Asinister hard-boiled eggnamed Solas is trying to dissolve the protective Veil between the physical and magical worlds, flooding the Tevinter Imperium capital of Minrathous with demons as a result.

(Image credit: EA)

Bellara does something weird and magical.

The main character, Rook, is rather against that sort of thing. So are their demo companions: magical detective Neve, scout Harding (from Dragon Age: Inquisition), and Varric (basically the series protagonist at this point). Off you go on a quest to guard the Veil.

It’s precisely the kind of tense, race-against-the-clock plot you expect from a Dragon Age game, in other words. Strange, then, that once the demo was over, I kept finding myself thinking about Mass Effect, and about the possibility that Dragon Age—the last Baldur’s Gates-ian holdout at a BioWare increasingly determined to make cinematic, third-person action games—had left the last vestiges of its TTRPG-inspired past behind.

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard | Official Gameplay Reveal - YouTubeWatch On

Dragon Age: The Veilguard | Official Gameplay Reveal - YouTube

The demo I was shown opened on Rook and Varric being faced with a choice. They were looking for Neve, and to find her, they needed to interrogate a bar owner. To do that, they had to get through her squad of hooded goons. The two options on either side of the dialogue wheel? Fight through the thugs, or persuade your quarry to come along quietly.

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Combat in a wide open area in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Following a quick, cinematic fight cutscene and a Telltale-style ‘Varric will remember that you hate diplomacy and love decking people’ pop-up, we were on our way, chatting all the while.

Readers who are actually just me will be glad to hear that BioWare seems to have resisted the Mass Effect: Andromeda proclivity for gratingly quippy dialogue in this one, at least. Varric makes some jokes, sure, but people spoke mostly like (dramatic, fantasy) people in my time in Minrathous.

(Image credit: EA)

A wide shot of Minrathous, capital of the Tevinter Imperium.

Mass Age, or: Dragon Effect

It’s the kind of place—drunk on pride and power—that’s destined for a fall. And oh, look, here it is. Solas' ritual to unVeil everyone is already underway, and demons have begun pouring into the lavishly rendered streets in level-appropriate droves.

Time for Rook and co to get to work, and do you know what that looks like more than anything, at least to me? Mass Effect. Specifically, Mass Effect 2 and 3, right down to particular enemies having blue and orange bars on top of their normal health bars representing barriers and armour respectively, and which you can whittle down quickly using the right abilities (or nailing a shot to a vital part with your bow, if you’ve got one).

Heck, the Rogue even has Arkham-esque parries

There’s even the classic Mass Effect ability wheel: Rook’s powers and cooldowns arrayed along the bottom and those of her companions on either side of the screen, with time pausing as you use it.

(Image credit: EA)

The ability wheel in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Dragon Age has become more and more cinematic and action-y as the series has progressed, of course, but what I saw in my brief time at SGF really has me wondering if the last nubs of its Infinity Engine roots have finally been sanded away. At no point did the overhead tactical view—a series mainstay that let you pretend you were playing an old-school Baldur’s Gate if you squinted—make an appearance.

Heck, the Rogue even has Arkham-esque parries, and it looks like everyone will have to hammer dodge to evade ranged attacks. Time was we’d let a D20 handle all that for us. You kids don’t know what we’ve lost.

You might think I’m some embittered THAC0 lover upset at the onward march of time. You’d be right. But wait! Note that I haven’t called anything I saw in my time with Veilguard ‘bad’. It was actually all quite dazzling: Slickly animated and, at times, even reasonably challenging for our presumably quite experienced demo-er. It just didn’t seem veryDragon Age, the series that kept some—I stress some—of its RPG roots even while Shepard went full third-person shooter and BioWare went about its doomed work on Anthem.

(Image credit: EA)

Ranged combat in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

More about dragon ageDragon Age: The Veilguard is my third-favorite game of the year, and I don’t care who knowsAfter years of holding out hope, 2024 was the year I finally gave up on BioWare

More about dragon age

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is my third-favorite game of the year, and I don’t care who knowsAfter years of holding out hope, 2024 was the year I finally gave up on BioWare

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is my third-favorite game of the year, and I don’t care who knows

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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Mass Age, or: Dragon Effect#

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The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Mass Age, or: Dragon Effect