Dragon Age: The Veilguard preview – a vast improvement on Inquisition

I got hands-on with Dragon Age: The Veilguard for a six-hour preview

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / BioWare / EA

When I was invited to San Francisco to play six hours of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I didn’t know what to expect but had tentatively high hopes. I’ve been around the Dragon Age block before but I’m far from a scholar on Thedas – I know what a Grey Warden is, but I couldn’t pick one out of a lineup from their uniform alone. 

Still, with a fantasy world this lore-rich, I’ll always have the desire to immerse myself within it, and while previous games have had too many frustrations to scratch that itch, trailers for Veilguard immediately piqued my interest. Cheesy dialogue aside, I immediately wanted to get to know each of the companions, and gameplay showcases have been extremely promising, with flashy-looking fights and promises of an engaging narrative that is accessible to someone with only a base-level knowledge of the lore.

When I finally got hands-on with it, the combat immediately stood out to me as a vast improvement on the last game, Dragon Age: Inquisition. With a much heavier focus on fast-paced action, it sits with some of the best modern action games in terms of how good it feels to hack, slash, and cast your way through a Thedas under threat of destruction from ancient elven gods. Even when you’re wailing on tanky enemies with huge health bars, it still maintains a feeling of momentum as there are tangible reactions to all your abilities, while even your basic strikes have a fun flow to them.

This is true of all classes, and while they all have the same basic functions, they still feel unique to play. I bounced between Warrior, Rogue, and Mage, and although I clicked with some better than others (Mage takes some getting used to), I enjoyed my time with each as the basic rhythm of attacks feels great, while the unique ability set of each class shines. 

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / BioWare / EA

Each one plays with different status effects that favor that class’ playstyle. Rogues strike quickly and dodge quicker, favoring inflicting Weakness and Stagger on enemies; Warriors find the opening for heavy strikes, using damage-dealing statuses like Burn and Bleed; and Mages keep their distance while halting enemy progress with things like Freeze abilities. The exact skill sets are up to you though, as the extensive skill trees all push out into three different specializations that you can focus on for each class.

There isn’t a massive enemy variety – at least in the early game – but each encounter is cleverly designed to make sure you’re always on your toes, with several different types of shielding. Some shields are best destroyed with ranged attacks, others heavy attacks, and some charged attacks. Combine that with vastly different attack styles and you’ll need to take a moment to work out what to prioritize before you dive into combat.

This extends to boss battle design as well. I got to fight a few different bosses – some a part of the main story, others optional – and each was more intense than the last. Big monsters have the classic design of focusing on limbs to expose weak points and stun the beasts, while humanoid bosses provide a greater variety of challenges. The fight that stood out to me the most – partly because it took place in a waist-deep pool of blood – saw a speedy teleporter that was weak to parrying attacks, who also summons enemies that are best dealt with via parries.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / BioWare / EA

It isn’t some soulslike encounter, though. The parry system is more like Arkham combat than anything soulsy, and it only helps to enhance how badass you feel when you can quickly react to incoming hits without worrying too much about mistiming attacks. Plus, if you want to ignore it and just power through with AoE and knockback abilities, you absolutely can, you’ll just have a slightly harder time of it.

Going all-out on your abilities is worth it though, as they show off the combat’s most surprising aspect, which is that it’s absolutely gorgeous. I remember watching the initial gameplay reveal, seeing how cool it looked, and thinking there’s no way it would look that good all the time, but it honestly does. Both enemy and allied abilities are bright, colorful, and pop off the screen, yet the UI is well-designed and easily readable amidst the chaos.

Accessing these abilities is thankfully easy as well. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was worried when that big ability wheel for character and companion commands was shown off, but you have more than one way to access it. While you can open the wheel to slow down time and think about your abilities, you can also simply hold down LT/L2 and press another button to activate them. Player abilities are right there on the face buttons, while for companions you will have to bend your hands a little more to hit the d-pad or bumper buttons. It takes a little bit of getting used to but is still far less fiddly than I feared.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard / BioWare / EA

The combat is just one side of Dragon Age though, with the companion interactions being the other big thing people want to know about, and unfortunately, I didn’t get much of an in-depth look in this preview. However, I can say that the character banter and conversations aren’t anywhere near as cheesy or full of MCU-style quips as the initial trailers suggested. While I wasn’t blown away by the writing in any of the scenes I saw, I never once rolled my eyes at it.

The main story has a lot of potential, giving you plenty of opportunities to dive into the backstory of Solas and the other eleven gods that serve as the game’s antagonists. Even in the small snippets I got to see, they felt much more fleshed out than generic fantasy villains, a role they could’ve easily fallen into.

It makes me optimistic that, in a year where several heavily hyped titles failed to impress, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is going to be one that delivers on its promises. I still have some questions about how the characters develop (and how good the romances are), along with the overall pacing of the game, but with excellent combat and a lot of narrative intrigue, I’m more excited than ever to get my hands on the full game when Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches on October 31 for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.