Dragon Age™: The Veilguard

I don't care about any agenda, I'm woke as heck myself. But believe it or not, this game is even worse than most people say it is. The combat is ADHD button mash rubbish with damage sponge enemies, the design is mobile game bs and the writing straight up blasphemous. Dragon Age used to be mature dark fantasy. This is, in every aspect, the anti-thesis to what Dragon Age should be about.

Veilguard is less like a sequel and more like a sanitized parody made by people who no longer understand why Dragon Age mattered in the first place. Dragon Age world used to be cruel, political, oppressive, dangerous, companions distrusted each other. The world did not care about your comfort. Veilguard strips away that identity and replaces it with overexplained dialogue, emotionally curated companions, and scenes that constantly soften their own tension before anything meaningful can settle. Characters repeat the obvious, explain every feeling out loud, and move past deaths or catastrophes with barely any emotional aftermath. Veilguard shrinks a brutal dark fantasy world into a therapy circle constantly reaffirming their teammates filled with teenage-like drama dialogues. Even the visual direction feels wrong. Many characters look overly stylized, polished, and exaggerated in a way that feels ripped from modern Marvel or Disney-style ensemble media instead of Dragon Age. Previous games looked grounded, worn down, and hostile. Veilguard devs imitated character design they thought liked by "modern audiences". And the leadership fantasy has completely lost its weight. Instead of commanding unstable factions during a collapsing world, much of the game feels like sitting in a lounge listening to personal problems while the apocalypse patiently waits for everyone to finish emotionally checking in. Rook is handed authority with almost no resistance, and factions easily fall into place. What makes this genuinely painful as a longtime fan is that you can still see pieces of Dragon Age buried underneath all of it. The lore is there. The Inquisition is there. Solas is there. The foundations are still there. But the soul is gone. Worse, Veilguard reveals major pieces of long-awaited lore yet fails to give them the weight, atmosphere, or execution they deserve. Once, Alistair described its world “pretty as a painting.” It was truly heartfelt back then. Now, Dragon Age has eroded into a parody-like just to chase “modern audiences”. As a result, it lost its identity, the legacy that made the series special in the first place. Dragon Age Inquisition was the last real Dragon Age game. If you value what the series used to be, Veilguard is not it.

This was a tough one to score. I am a long-time Dragon Age fan and was fortunate enough to come of age during the golden era of Western RPGs, of which Dragon Age: Origins was undoubtedly one of the finest examples. I cannot recommend this game, primarily because it commits two cardinal sins of game design: it is a slog to get through, and it lasts far longer than it has any right to. Had this been a tightly crafted, well-written 20-hour experience, it could have been excellent. Instead, we got a game that never seems to know what it wants to be. The writing is poor, the dialogue is often painful, and the characters are largely forgettable. Even the protagonist is introduced with little backstory or meaningful explanation as to why they are involved in the story. The ending has some impact, and it is obvious that the Mass Effect team had significant influence. What we ultimately get is a mixture of Mass Effect 2's Suicide Mission and Mass Effect 3's final battle. The similarities are difficult to ignore. What is particularly disappointing is that those games were released in 2010 and 2012. The fact that Veilguard borrows so heavily from titles that were already more than a decade old by its release suggests a lack of creative confidence and a desire to recapture past successes rather than create something new. The controversy surrounding the inclusion of a transgender character was largely overblown. The fact that she is transgender makes little difference to her overall character arc. The problem is not the concept of the character but the execution. She is written as a spoiled brat, making her difficult to relate to, and as a result, her personal struggles fail to resonate. Dragon Age has featured gay and bisexual characters in every game, as far as I can remember, so exploring themes of identity is hardly uncharted territory for the franchise. Previous games handled these topics with far more subtlety and creativity. The remaining cast suffers from similar problems. They are all far too nice and agreeable, constantly encouraging and congratulating one another. The party banter often feels juvenile, as though everyone receives a participation trophy regardless of their actions. The dialogue lacks tension, conflict, and personality. I also struggle to understand why BioWare chose not to use the Inquisitor as the protagonist. Instead, we get "Rook"—a name that feels uninspired and forgettable, much like the character themselves. It is clear that a troubled development cycle produced a troubled game. Veilguard bears the scars of shifting leadership, changing priorities, and an uncertain creative vision. More broadly, it serves as a reminder that brands do not make great games—people do. It is often a mistake for large publishers to acquire successful studios only to lose the talent that made those studios successful in the first place. There are positives. I enjoyed the combat, the visuals, the soundtrack, and much of the level design. Strengths: * Combat * Graphics and art direction * Soundtrack * Level design Weaknesses: * Writing * Characters * Overall tone * Significant changes to established Dragon Age lore and storytelling I hope Dragon Age: The Veilguard has not killed the franchise, but I suspect its commercial performance may have done significant damage. My instinct is that it may be time for EA to licence the property to another studio. There is still plenty of room within the Dragon Age timeline for new stories, whether centred around the original elven age, the First Blight, or entirely new conflicts. More importantly, this should be a wake-up call for EA's business model. Publishers should focus on publishing. Let talented developers make games with realistic budgets and creative freedom, then provide the support and distribution needed to bring those games to market. That is where I believe the industry is heading, particularly as more experienced developers choose to form independent studios. This game makes me sad. Ultimately, there are far better RPGs available today. As an RPG, I would give it a 4/10: below average and unlikely to be replayed. As a Dragon Age game, it scores even lower at 3/10. It lacks the charm, atmosphere, and sense of identity that made Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Inquisition so memorable.

If one is to try to be kind to this game, one could say that it was ahead of its time in that it perhaps could have been written by AI even before AI was a thing. It is not a bad game at all, but it is not a good game either. It is a bland game. When remembering previous games in the series, there are always scenes I remembered and still do. Ostagar in Origins, as well as the general feeling of struggle against overwhelming odds. In DA: Inquisition, there is the entire "The Dawn Will Come" segment that is locked into my memory forever, as well as actually feeling the spirit of the organisation you build leak into every part of the gameplay. In Veilguard? Even just a few days after finishing it, I barely remember anything that stands out. I eventually played through this despite having heard negative reviews on it since I am a long term fan of the Dragon Age series. I did finish it, since I wanted to be up to date on the lore and the story in case they make another one with more effort put in later on. And there are some nice lore tidbits included. Quite a few, actually. The issue is more with how it is presented. There are HUGE chunks of major lore or cataclysmic developments for the world presented in dialogues and letters. Meanwhile, the cast of the game is sitting in a lovely vacation lighthouse, discussing coffee and going on little bookshopping adventures. And that is a large part of the problem. Historically these games has been very well written, with complex characters, amazing dialogue, deep lore and interesting storylines. This game... looks pretty. And draws upon what might have been pre-written lore without knowing what to do with it save for occasionally pouring it out with a bucket. And that makes for a very strange experience. It looks pretty, like I said. And there are a few interesting cities that I would wish to have gotten to explore more. But the characters are incredibly flat. The dialogue is very bland and one dimensional. It misses almost every opportunity to flesh out the world. Combat, character builds and gear choices are also very dumbed down from previous iterations of the game, which makes combat real boring and repetitive really fast. It does pick up a bit near the end. Once they finally abandon the vacation side quest in the world that presumably is under heavy threat but does not display even a hint of that other than in letters, the last few hours of the game is neat. Other than that? If you are interested, then do it like me and wait to pick it up until it is on a nice discount.

i defended the game for a long time, but lets be honest, it really went far from its roots and it turned into a bland generic fantasy setting that killed their whole franchise, it sucks what they did to my boy.

I refunded the game even with a 70% discount. The writing is the main reason I can't recommend this. Veilguard feels weirdly childish for a game aimed at a mature audience. The story is supposedly about ancient elven gods threatening the world, but the dialogue often sounds like it belongs in a kids' adventure show. Characters joke, banter and explain their feelings in a way that completely clashes with the scale of what's happening. Instead of tension, dread or moral complexity, the game keeps giving you safe, overly polished dialogue that feels sanitised and immature. That's the biggest mismatch. Dragon Age used to feel like dark fantasy, with politics, religion, betrayal, racism, slavery, war and morally grey decisions. Veilguard feels afraid to be uncomfortable. The companions so far don't feel like people shaped by a harsh world. They feel like upbeat characters written to be agreeable, quirky and easy to digest. It makes the whole thing feel tonally wrong. The gameplay has also been simplified to the point where it barely resembles the older games. Tactical combat has been replaced with a button-mashing action system, party control is reduced, and positioning matters far less. Exploration is mostly linear, with corridor-like maps and obvious dead ends that usually reward you with a few coins or vendor junk. Even the RPG systems feel shallow. After several hours I finally found a merchant, only to discover that the shop is locked behind arbitrary shop levels, and the available items are mostly just upgrades of equipment I already had. Previous Dragon Age games made shopping and looting feel meaningful. Here it feels stripped back and unrewarding. Veilguard looks polished, but it doesn't feel like Dragon Age. It feels like a simplified action RPG with writing that is too childish for its own story.

I honestly liked every dragon age game up to this one, and im generally pretty open to liking things that most don't like but man is this thing a hot steaming pile of rubbish. i played it for a couple hours before feeling disappointed and intended to come back to it the next day and the idea of playing this game more made me feel extremely sad and exhausted. I'm not "anti woke" or whatever but this game is everything wrong with modern gaming. The combat is fine its kinda enjoyable but abit mindless but the story is just so horrifically bad, none of hte characters are slightly likeable and the way they talk is so bizarre for the setting, even if you are a diehard dragon age fan you should avoid at all costs

The negative reviews made me buy this at sale and that was a wise choice. It took me a while to pinpoint what I didn't like about The Veilguard. For some reason it kept reminding me of Hogwarts ... The bright colors, the endless hand-holding ... and then it occurd to me: This is a game for children. The gritty-ness of the previous Dragon Age games is entirely gone. All characters in the game are still emotionally children. None of them act like adults. This game is marketed entirely to the wrong people.

My best description for this game is "generic AAA 3rd person game with Dragon Age lore". Overall, it's worth a play if you have access through EA Play, but it definitely has its flaws. I've worked my way up through all the games recently, so I have the other ones fresh in memory too. The graphics are a big step up from Inquisition, and the world feels a lot more handcrafted. It's less of an open world now, but the maps all act as huge hubs with multiple pathways that open up as the game progresses. The combat is a lot more involved, and would be the best in the series, if not for the incredibly infuriating design choice that [i]all[/i] enemies simply target you and ignore your team. If there's any ranged enemies whatsoever, you've got to focus those, or they'll never stop aiming at you even if you're busy fighting other things. It's manageable, and I understand the reasoning (your team doesn't have health), but it really breaks the immersion and simply feels unfair. The characters are all much of a goody two shoes to be believable, everyone is basically the most selfless person you've ever met, no matter what their actual personality is. It's hard to empathise with them, especially compared to previous games when everyone was more down to earth. The conversations also feel a little awkward too, like it's the sort of thing teenagers would say rather than adults. I don't know if it's because I slightly burned out by playing the other 3 games recently, but it's definitely not pulled me in the same way that Origins and Inquisition did. I'm enjoying it in small doses, but I'm not gripped.

Так-так-так. У игры были отзывы ниже плинтуса, провал провалов. "Но это же Dragon Age", - сказал я себе и сел с кислой рожей играть. По началу шло тяжело, я же предвзятый сидел, но потом всё поменялось. Основная история хоть и стандартная для Bioware, про великое зло, но Солас и Гиланнайн отбивают все деньги. Читал претензии, что в игре всё сказочно и чтобы ты не делал, всё закончится хэппи. Спешу Вас расстроить, будут моменты где вы офигеете. 10 из 10 ставлю взаимоотношениям между персонажами. Одно удовольствие наблюдать за их развитием. Столько раз на эмоции пробивало. Остановлюсь прямо сейчас, чтобы не спойлерить. По боевой системе трудно сказать, так как много классов, но мне за рыцаря с щитом и мечом понравилось. Есть вариативность, не как в слешере конечно, но прям привыкать пришлось к комбинациям. Блоки, парирования, перекаты, удары щитом, удары мечом, умения, тяжелые удары щитом и мечом. Всё это комбинируется. Еще из плюсов, есть жопабольные боссы(проходил на кошмаре), где нужно с самого начала иметь определенную тактику и ей придерживаться. Одно удовольствие потратить час или два, уворачиваясь и парируя уже на автомате и  потом сказать: "Получай, су... супостат!" Подводя итоги, я понимаю, что сейчас предпочтения отдаются таким играм как Астробот, но для меня эта часть серии навсегда останется в моем сердце. Да, это не уровень трилогии Mass Effect(пройдена 8 раз), но через какое-то время определенно её перепройду. Я даже жалею, что купил её по скидке, а не на релизе. Безусловно рекомендую!!!