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Dragon Age: The Veilguard

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard
The logo with text stating "Dragon Age" is in a metallic purple silver color with a smaller subtitle text "The Veilguard" under it with coloration. The text is on a black background.
Developer(s)BioWare
Publisher(s)Electronic Arts
Director(s)
  • Corinne Busche
  • John Epler
Producer(s)
  • Amber Vincent
  • Rob Davidson
  • Scylla Costa
Programmer(s)
  • Andy Kempling
  • Christopher Kerr
  • Michael Webb
Artist(s)Matt Rhodes
Writer(s)Trick Weekes
Composer(s)
SeriesDragon Age
EngineFrostbite
Platform(s)
ReleaseOctober 31, 2024
Genre(s)Action role-playing
Mode(s)Single-player

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an action role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. The fourth major game in the Dragon Age franchise, The Veilguard is the sequel to Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014). Set ten years after Inquisition,[1] the game features new locations in the fictional world of Thedas for the player to explore.[2] The story follows a player character known as Rook who was recruited by Varric Tethras to help him stop Solas, also known as the elven trickster god Fen'Harel, from bringing down the Veil. While disrupting Solas' ritual, they accidentally unleash two imprisoned elven gods – Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain – who then wreak havoc across Thedas with the Blight in an attempt to conquer the world. Rook, supported by companions and various factions, sets out to stop these members of the elven pantheon from achieving their goals. Players control Rook from a third-person perspective and travel to various zones via magical portals known as Eluvians. Veilguard utilizes a hub-and-spoke world design unlike its predecessor's open world design.

The game's development, which began in 2015, has been marked by lengthy delays, several fundamental changes in design, and high staff turnover.[3][4] The game was announced as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in 2022,[5][6] and retitled to Dragon Age: The Veilguard in June 2024.[7][8]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on October 31, 2024.[9][10] After release Dragon Age: The Veilguard topped Steam charts and broke BioWare's concurrent player record.[11] The game received generally positive reviews from critics and was nominated for awards such as Ultimate Game of The Year at the Golden Joystick Awards[12] and Innovation in Accessibility for The Game Awards.[13]

Gameplay

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a single-player[14] action role-playing game.[15][16] In previous games, a player's role-playing choices in earlier titles were imported from save files or the web application Dragon Age Keep.[14][17][18] Veilguard instead allows players to only select three choices they made in Inquisition.[19][20][21] Creative Director John Epler said that decisions made in the previous games largely didn't impact events in Veilguard, which allowed the game's creators "to avoid contradicting" past choices individual players made.[19]

During character creation, the player is able to choose a lineage for their player character (human, dwarf, elf, or qunari), a fighting class (rogue, mage, or warrior), and a character backstory with one of six faction associations.[22][23][24][25] Like the choice of origin in the original game, this faction sets the character's course throughout the game.[24] Unlike in previous games, customization options include body size[23] and body part selections that are independent of the voice or pronouns (she/her, he/him, or they/them) chosen for the player character.[22] Players are also be able to remake their player character from Dragon Age: Inquisition which appears in the game, alongside some other previous Dragon Age characters.[14]

There are seven companion characters from which two can be chosen to form a combat party of three.[15][16] Unlike previous games in the series, players cannot directly control the companions in combat.[26] The companions in Veilguard are described as pansexual, allowing romances with player characters of any gender, but Busche said that they were not "playersexual", or only attracted to the player character.[27] While the combat system is now real-time action-based, as opposed to the tactical strategy approach of earlier Dragon Age titles, Veilguard still employs a pause-and-play mechanic similar to Inquisition's.[28]: 35  Instead of that game's open world design, Veilguard uses a "hub-and-spoke design" where players get around the game's world by magical portals; the areas so accessed vary in size.[28]: 38 

Synopsis

Setting

Map of Thedas featuring the main regions of the setting. Veilguard occurs primarily in the northern regions of Thedas.

The story begins ten years after the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, with previous companion Solas, now known by his previous alias, Fen'Harel, the elven god of betrayal and rebellion, attempting to destroy the Veil, the metaphysical boundary between the physical world and the Fade, the world of spirits and demons; Solas previously created the Veil to imprison the other elven gods after their misuse of power, but now attempts to restore the world of ancient elves out of regret for sealing ancient elves off from the Fade and causing the downfall of their society.

The protagonist player character is "Rook", a member of one of six factions: the Antivan Crows, an order of assassins from Antiva; the Grey Wardens, an order dedicated to fighting darkspawn with their headquarters in the Anderfels; the Lords of Fortune, a guild of treasure hunters from Rivain; the Mourn Watch, guardians of the Grand Necropolis in Nevarra; the Shadow Dragons, a Tevinter resistance faction opposing corruption and slavery; or the Veil Jumpers, a multi-race group dedicated to uncovering the forest of Arlathan which was once the capital of the ancient elven empire. After disobeying the orders of their faction and being sent away to cool tensions, Rook was recruited by Varric Tethras, Viscount of Kirkwall, and Lace Harding, lead scout of the Inquisition, in their search for Solas.

Alongside Harding, there are six other mandatory companions: Bellara Lutare, a Veil Jumper; Davrin, a Grey Warden; Emmrich Volkarin, a Mourn Watcher; Lucanis Dellamorte, an Antivan Crow; Neve Gallus, a Shadow Dragon; and Taash, a Lord of Fortune.

Plot

Rook, Varric, and Harding pursue Solas in the Tevinter capital city of Minrathous, attempting to stop Solas from destroying the Veil. Rescuing Neve, the team locate Solas in the forest of Arlathan, capital of the ancient elven empire. Rook disrupts Solas' ritual to destroy the Veil, which releases two ancient elven gods tied to the Veil; Elgar'nan, the god of vengeance, and Ghilan'nain, the goddess of navigation.

Solas is imprisoned within the Fade and bound to Rook via a blood connection at the ritual site; Rook learns that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain plan to harness the Blight, the period of darkspawn corrupting Tevinter Old Gods into Archdemons, out of revenge for Solas rebelling against their rise to power and subsequently imprisoning them within the Veil after their murder of Mythal, the elven goddess of love who attempted to keep the peace. The team take up residence within the "Lighthouse", Solas' former base of operations within the Fade, and recover the lyrium dagger used by Solas during the ritual. Travelling through the "Crossroads", the pathway between ancient elves and the Fade, via magical mirrors, Eluvians, Rook enlists allies to pursue Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain.

Alongside Harding and Neve, Rook recruits Bellara, Lucanis, and Davrin, before being informed of blighted dragons sent by Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain to both Minrathous and the Antivan city of Treviso; Rook must decide which city to save. Rook then recruits Emmrich and Taash, before meeting leader of the Grey Wardens in Weisshaupt, First Warden Glastrum. Unable to convince the First Warden of the danger, Rook either talks him down or knocks him unconscious, as Weisshaupt is besieged by Ghilan'nain and arisen Archdemon, Razikale. Despite heavy Warden losses, Weisshaupt is saved and Razikale is killed, rendering Ghilan'nain mortal.

Fighting off the Gods' allies, the Venatori, Tevinter supremacists, and the Antaam, the military of the qunari, Rook learns in Treviso that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain plan to conduct a ritual in Tearstone Island on the eve of the next eclipse, preparing to pierce the Fade with a red lyrium dagger and flood Thedas with the Blight.

Rallying their allies with the aid of the Inquisitor, Rook and their companions gather at Tearstone Island; either Davrin or Harding leads a distraction team and is killed in the process. After Ghilan'nain is killed by Lucanis, Solas betrays Rook and entraps them within the Fade prison, recovering the lyrium dagger. Rook escapes with the aid of their companions, learning that Varric was killed by Solas and that Solas had used blood magic to alter Rook's memory of the event; the team also created a duplicate of Solas' dagger. Elgar'nan retreats to Minrathous and overthrows the palace of the Archon, with Solas in pursuit.

With the aid of their remaining allies, Rook and the team break through the fortified defenses of the Venatori and the Antaam. After being given the lyrium dagger by Solas, Rook learns that killing Elgar'nan will collapse the Veil and that an elven god must be binded to the Veil to uphold it. After Rook kills Elgar'nan and his Archdemon, Lusacan, Solas again attempts to collapse the Veil. Rook either forces Solas' binding to the Veil via fighting Solas or tricking him with the duplicate dagger, or (if the essence of Mythal was recovered) can peacefully convince Solas to stop the ritual and voluntarily bind himself out of atonement.

Development

The development of the fourth main entry in the Dragon Age series, code-named "Joplin", began in 2015 with Mike Laidlaw as its creative director. It was intended to be a smaller, more narrative-focused game set in the Tevinter Imperium region of the game's world setting, Thedas.[29]

Problems with the development of BioWare's other games Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem led to repeated interruptions as Joplin staff was shifted to these games. This included putting Joplin on hold in late 2016 with development resuming in March 2017 after Andromeda shipped.[29][30] In October 2017, BioWare and its parent company Electronic Arts cancelled Joplin altogether, reportedly because it had no room for a live service component to provide ongoing monetization opportunities.[29][30]

Development of the game was restarted under the code-name "Morrison" in 2018, this time with a live-service component and based on Anthem's code.[29][31] According to Bloomberg News, after the success of the single-player game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and the decision to cancel the reworking of the massively multiplayer online Anthem in February 2021 following its lackluster launch, EA and BioWare decided to remove the planned multiplayer components from Morrison and to develop it as a single-player game only.[32] Alpha-stage footage leaked in February 2023 indicated that the game would use real-time action combat gameplay, influenced by God of War, unlike previous Dragon Age games.[33][34][35]

Staff turnover

The project has been marked by a high turnover of leading staff. Several veteran Dragon Age staff, including Laidlaw, left the company in response to Joplin's cancellation in 2017.[29] After the 2018 restart, Mark Darrah remained as an executive producer, while Matthew Goldman took over the position of creative director for the project from 2017 to 2021.[36] By December 3, 2020, Darrah had resigned from BioWare, replaced by BioWare Austin studio head Christian Dailey as executive producer.[37] Goldman left BioWare by November 2021,[31] and was replaced as Creative Director by John Epler.[38] Dailey left BioWare in February 2022.[39] Corinne Busche became game director thereafter, Benoit Houle director of product development, and Mac Walters production director.[39] Walters in turn left BioWare in January 2023.[40] In March 2023, Darrah returned as a consultant for the game and the Mass Effect team joined the production of Veilguard, according to EA.[41][42]

In August 2023, BioWare laid off 50 people working on Veilguard and the next Mass Effect game;[43] this included Mary Kirby who was one of the series' original writers and credited with "creating Varric and the Qunari".[44] PC Gamer commented "that's not to say there are no veterans of the good old days left, but you're looking at a very different group of people than the one that made the studio's greatest hits".[44] In October, seven of them sued BioWare for additional compensation, complaining that BioWare's NDAs prevented them from adding their work on Veilguard to their portfolio.[45]

Music

Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe composed the game's soundtrack, replacing Trevor Morris, the composer for Inquisition.[46][47]

Marketing

Dragon Age 4 was announced at The Game Awards in December 2018. Promotional material showed red lyrium (a corrupted power source of magic in the game's universe) and the character Solas – the Dread Wolf – as significant elements of the game's plot.[48] Marketing on social media was focused on the tagline "The Dread Wolf Rises".[49][50][51]

In August 2020, a concept art video was released at Gamescom.[52][53][54] In December 2020, a teaser trailer featured the dwarven character Varric Tethras as narrator, as well as Solas.[55][56][57] No details on the game were released at the July 2021 EA Play event.[58][59] Jeffrey Grubb, for VentureBeat, commented that "holding back during this EA Play is just about enabling the publisher to get the game into position to begin marketing it in earnest. That will likely start in 2022".[58] Ash Parrish, for Kotaku, highlighted that given all the changes in development "Dragon Age 4 is probably not yet ready to be shown to the world" and that "BioWare has been drip-feeding fans information for years now".[59] Grubb, in a follow-up article for VentureBeat in January 2022, stated that "EA hasn't decided on when to begin marketing the project".[60][61]

In June 2022, the game's title was announced as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf.[62][5] Parrish, now for The Verge, highlighted that the title reveal for the game was "exciting for a lot of fans" because it not only makes Solas the antagonist of the upcoming game but also makes Dreadwolf a direct sequel unlike previous installments in the franchise.[6] A teaser trailer released in December 2023 featured new locations: Antiva, Rivain, and the Anderfels.[2]

In June 2024, the game was retitled Dragon Age: The Veilguard. BioWare explained that the titular Dread Wolf remains part of the game, however, the updated title is a stronger reflection of the game's focus.[7][63][64][65][66] BioWare general manager Gary McKay stated that the retitling was not due to focus testing:

We actually think sticking with Dreadwolf would have been the safer choice – 'Dread Wolf' is a cool name after all! In the end, it was most important for us to have a title that was authentic to the companions that are the heart of this adventure we've created. We've worked throughout development to create really incredible backstories for each companion that intersect with the main narrative in meaningful ways.[7]

On the title change, Ed Smith of PCGamesN commented that he liked "the sound of the new Dragon Age, and its focus on a cast of characters and their connections, so a name that reflects that conceit feels right".[67] In contrast, Andy Chalk of PC Gamer and Kenneth Shepard of Kotaku disliked the name change.[68][69] Chalk felt Veilguard "doesn't convey anything in the way Dreadwolf does" – "I see the word 'Dreadwolf' and I instinctively know that some bad shit is happening".[68] Shepard stated, "I understand the naming convention lines up with Dragon Age: Inquisition, which also was named after the team you were assembling, but Dreadwolf was a striking title that I will dearly miss".[69]

Following the release of the trailer introducing the companions, both Robin Valentine of PC Gamer and Edwin Evans-Thirlwell of Rock Paper Shotgun were apprehensive of the design shift from previous games.[70][71] Valentine thought the companions looked "more ready for a battle pass than an epic quest" with Evans-Thirlwell echoing that it had more of an Ocean's Eleven vibe than a Dragon Age one.[70][71] Gita Jackson of Aftermath viewed the "weird and bad" companion trailer as part of EA's "long legacy" of poor marketing since "Dragon Age has been the victim of this before".[72] Critics who attended the 2024 Summer Game Fest and experienced a hands-off gameplay demo were more positive about the upcoming game and felt the companion trailer did not accurately portray it.[73][22][74][75][23] Mike Minotti of GamesBeat commented, "don't let that weird CG trailer scare you".[76] Both Sean Booker of CNET and Alex Donaldson of VG247 were reminded of Mass Effect games;[75][73] Maddy Myers of Polygon and Parrish of The Verge thought the updated customization options in character creation stood out.[22][23] Parrish reserved "final judgment" for the finished product as "an hour of hands-off gameplay isn't enough to completely dispel the lingering concerns that the game's tortured development cycle has affected its quality. But I know the Dragon Age series, and based on the conversations I've had and the little I've seen, it feels like despite the turmoil, BioWare still got it right".[23]

Tie-in media

Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights is an anthology of short stories set in Thedas which serves as a prequel to the events that lead to Veilguard. It was published on March 10, 2020.[77][78][79] Susana Polo of Polygon noted that it is "clear that Tevinter Nights was written during a time in production when the general factions, some NPCs, and even a few companions were solidly in development" as these all appear in the anthology "years before they were officially announced".[79] Polo explained that while the anthology is a "great portrait" of the "relevant" Dragon Age canon before the game, the caveat with Tevinter Nights is "that some of the details set down in it may have changed between 2020 and" the release of Veilguard.[79]

Dragon Age: The Missing is a four-issue limited series comic, by writer George Mann, published by Dark Horse Comics from January 25 to May 10, 2023.[80][81] This prequel focuses on the continuing investigation into Solas by Varric Tethras and Lace Harding as they follow a lead to the Dark Roads; several Veilguard companions appear in the series.[80][82][83]

A tie-in fantasy podcast titled Dragon Age: Vows & Vengeance was released weekly from August 29 to October 17, 2024. The eight episode audio drama focuses on backstories for the game, with each episode featuring a different Veilguard companion.[84][85][86][87]

Reception

Critical reception

Dragon Age: The Veilguard received "generally favorable" reviews from critics for its Windows, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 versions according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.[90] OpenCritic determined that 69% of critics recommended the game.[91] Veilguard was also subject to review bombing on Metacritic, with users criticizing the game for being "woke". Some outlets noted that while the user reviews on Metacritic are largely negative, the user reviews of Veilguard on Steam have a "mostly positive" rating. In response, Metacritic emphasized their moderation system which would remove offensive reviews.[104][105][106]

Hayes Madsen of Rolling Stone called Veilguard a "fresh start for the franchise" with the game "practically a soft reset".[107] Leana Hafer, for IGN, similarly commented that the "story feels like both a send-off and a soft reboot, in a way, which was paradoxically a bit refreshing and disappointing at the same time".[96] Hafer also noted that Veilguard seems "a little disconnected" from previous games, however, she thought it was "cool" that the "Inquisitor ends up being a fairly important character".[96] Robin Valentine of PC Gamer thought the Inquisitor felt "like a glorified cameo" and was disappointed that Veilguard "doesn't really care about" decisions made by players in previous games – "in a game that already feels disconnected from its predecessors tonally and mechanically, it's a disheartening wiping clean of the slate".[97] Matt Purslow from IGN wrote that The Veilguard was "at war with itself" as he felt that the game was not interested in exploring the franchise's past despite being the franchise's first direct sequel, and he felt that the game sidelined major characters such as Solas and Varric. He remarked that the game was an "awkward sequel trapped in a cage made of reboot ideas".[108]

Ash Parrish of The Verge highlighted that throughout the Dragon Age series players made choices with mostly insubstantial "personal consequences", however with Veilguard, Parrish thought it was "the first time my choice felt consequential to my character, to the world around her, and to me as a player".[109] In contrast, Madsen thought the game's "choices don't feel quite as consequential as past entries" and the "major decisions" which impact the course of the story are "few and far between".[107] Madsen commented that Veilguard has many "little touches and details" to showcase the player's iteration of Rook within the narrative and that the companions are where the "storytelling truly shines – each one is wonderfully written and well integrated into the plot".[107]

Todd Harper's review for Polygon focused on the companions, noting that these characters are "the essence of Dragon Age, even more so than the fantasy plot of evil gods and impending mystical disaster that's driving the story" and thought the Veilguard companions were "weird and idiosyncratic in the best ways".[110] Hafer similarly noted that the companions are each "stars of their own story" and collectively are "made up of complex, memorable, likable, distinct personalities from across Thedas".[96] However, she was "disappointed" that in combat the companions felt "more like extensions of your own character" instead of distinct entities.[96]

Hafer opined that Veilguard has "weird" pacing and that the larger background plot, beyond companion storylines, "is nothing particularly outstanding in its overall structure" with only Solas as "the major wrinkle" which makes it "interesting".[96] Madsen commented that Solas is "arguably a second protagonist" with the game focusing on "the choices he made, how he's altered the world, and how your journey as Rook mirrors that".[107] Harper viewed the "non-narrative" of the game, such as "exploration and combat", as "serviceable".[110] Hafer thought the boss fights were the highlight of the game's combat and that Veilguard has "visual splendor".[96] Parrish opined that the "companions and environments are arresting in their design" in this "slow burn" game.[109] Harper also noted that the game is "graphically gorgeous".[110]

Sales

Upon release, Veilguard ranked first on Steam's global top sellers chart and broke the record for the most concurrent player record for a BioWare game.[11][111] The game reached over 85,000 concurrent players on Steam during the opening weekend.[112] It was also one of EA's "biggest single-player launches on the platform, narrowly passing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's peak concurrent numbers".[113] Rhiannon Bevan of TheGamer noted that this Steam concurrent count is limited to "whoever owns it on PC" and while the total number of Veilguard players across all platforms is unknown, the Steam number "suggests that things are going well – and certainly far better than BioWare's most recent releases before this".[112]

Accolades

Year Award Category Result Ref.
2024 Golden Joystick Awards Ultimate Game of The Year Nominated [12]
The Game Awards Innovation in Accessibility Nominated [13]

Notes

  1. ^ Based on 48 scored reviews of 52 total reviews
  2. ^ Based on 24 scored reviews of 25 total reviews
  3. ^ Based on 10 scored reviews of 12 total reviews
  4. ^ Based on 94 reviews

References

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