Video Games

BioWare on Dragon Age The Veilguard factions and quest choices

And beards and presents and oh so much more

Josh Broadwell

BioWare

BioWare hosted a Dragon Age: The Veilguard question-and-answer session on Discord and shared a heap of information about the RPG's factions, companion relationships, combat, and a whole lot more. Twitter user Shinobi602 bundled them all together in one very long tweet for convenient reading.

If you’re into Baldur’s Gate 3, the first set of questions and answers will probably seem familiar. It’s about Dragon Age The Veilguard’s character customization and other general options, including the option to toggle nudity on and off and pick some nice undies in the character creation process. You can also toggle elements of the interface on and off, so if you don’t want a map or really dislike seeing damage numbers pop up, you don’t have to deal with them.

You can save characters to your device and avoid having to start from scratch, and BioWare is particularly pleased with their hair mechanics and luscious beards. Speaking of looks, Veilguard has a transmog feature that lets you customize your active wear and casual look however you want, and you can swap between active and casual at will, like you can in BG3. BioWare also mentioned lots of faction gear you get if you choose to ally with Veilguard’s factions, such as Veil Jumper equipment.

Factions seem to play an important role beyond just providing a handful of dialogue options. Your faction determines your character’s surname, and depending on which group you ally with, you’ll get different dialogue options during conversations with companions. Some of those options – and plenty of non-faction choices – determine how certain storylines play out, and BioWare suggested that, if you want to see everything Veilguard has to offer, you’ll want to do multiple playthroughs.

One other interesting note is that companions – who BioWare described as a “found family” – will forge relationships with each other, including friendships and rivalries, that show up in conversations, events, and banter throughout the adventure. Choices you make with companions will influence how their quests unfold, but BioWare said since they’re keen on ensuring players don’t lock themselves out of important quests, you won’t accidentally ruin your chances of seeing a whole character arc through.

You can also give them presents again, though with how prominent that feature is throughout the series, we'd be more surprised if you couldn't.

Best of all for folks like me who haven’t had time to read all the many pieces of Dragon Age fiction outside the games, you don’t have to. BioWare said knowledge of Tevinter Nights and other works can enhance what you get from The Veilguard, but it isn’t essential.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches on October 31, 2024, for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5, and BioWare has some special Veilguard PC features in store as well, so it won’t be as rough to play on that platform as Inquisition was.

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Josh Broadwell
JOSH BROADWELL

Josh is a freelance writer and reporter who specializes in guides, reviews, and whatever else he can convince someone to commission. You may have seen him on NPR, IGN, Polygon, or Rolling Stone shouting about RPGs. When he isn’t working, you’ll likely find him outside with his Belgian Malinois and Australian Shepherd or leveling yet another job in FFXIV.

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