Dragon Age: The Veilguard (XS) - Review

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Reviewer's Note: Certain story praises and critiques require that I dive into SPOILERS for both The Veilguard and Inquisition.  Read on at your own risk.
  
Like a mythical creature lying dormant within its keep, Bioware's own high-fantasy franchise has enjoyed a hiatus for roughly ten years.  A decade is a long time and that's no more clearly felt than with this once-venerated RPG developer.  Dragon Age: Inquisition was met with tremendous critical praise – like winning The Game Awards' first-ever Game of the Year – and impressive commercial sales, but said prestige didn’t seem to prevent what appeared like publisher meddling in later titles.  From rushing products to market (Mass Effect: Andromeda) to unsuccessfully chasing the live-service trend (Anthem), the only thing "unblighted" in the intervening years were Inquisition’s own expansions.  So, The Veilguard isn't merely another epic fantasy sequel; it's also a grander tale of a titan trying to return to form... its former glory in spite of such a tumultuous development cycle.  Is Bioware's latest ballad a triumphal revival or a funeral procession for this franchise?
  
For the uninitiated or quasi-newcomers like myself (limited time with all previous mainline titles), Veilguard's opening will get anyone up to speed.  A previous party member of the Inquisition, Solas, was more than a mere elven mage; he was revealed to be a god and ultimately betrayed his former crew.  After a convenient decade since the events of Inquisition, he's on the cusp of successfully tearing down The Veil, a magical barrier separating the material and spiritual worlds.  While your team is successful in disrupting this world-ending ritual, this also results in freeing two ancient gods hell-bent on calamity. 


All told, it's a relatively clean setup, so your created character, Rook, can take on these new Big Bads before all of Thedas is in ruin.  There's a clear impetus to assume the leadership mantle from the newly-injured Varric, another previous Inquisition member, and assemble a variegated cast of spell-casters and fighters.  And despite stopping his ritual, Solas isn't gone per se; instead, he's now enisled to the spiritual realm and tenuously connected to Rook's mind.  His early conversations are among Veilguard's best because of that uneasy tension: being face-to-face with the proclaimed "god of trickery" nearly responsible for the world's destruction inside your mind palace.  You can't help but carry suspicion of his original motives and also his intense hatred for this godly duo.  Even if egregiously underutilized on the whole, it's a sound concept that also doubles as useful lore-dumping about your primary targets.
  
Conversely, such intrigue is totally absent when interacting with anyone else.  For all of the resources, time, and craftsmanship poured into the deep character creator to make "your Rook," Veilguard's dialogue system offers about as many distinct branching pathways as an Appalachian family tree.  One could sling arrows at older Bioware's moral binaries and how that'd inform the overall story, but at least those options present actual role-playing compared to boilerplate responses like affirming, stern and affirming, or sarcastic and affirming.  Despite several characters with unique pasts and disparate philosophies ripe for interrogation, virtually nothing comes from it because you're more interested in re-stating – for the hundredth time – how Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are set on ruining the world.  Even the harsher choices expressly presented in the dialogue wheel ("you're a damn fool!") are artificially softened by Rook's own performance.  Why?  Because genuinely disparate responses would conflict with most conversations having only one pre-determined outcome.


Sanding down those edges also leads to this being among Bioware's worst companion rosters to date.  There was a kernel of potential in forming this found family; it's even aping Mass Effect 2 & 3's emphasis on completing companion and faction quests to more positively influence the grand finale.  But it's not like Renegade Shepard wasn't an option.  You were able to be a vindictive jackass who could say bad words while still winning crew loyalty because… they were adults.  Compare that to someone like the beatific Bellara: a genuinely tragic backstory that's swamped by her saccharine tone and hacky dialogue in every conversation.  A lighter touch can be a welcome – even necessary – break at times, but layering everything with insufferable "so that just happened!" quips is tantamount to waterboarding.  
  
That tonal incongruity burrows its way into Veilguard's presentation as well.  The old quasi-realistic approach to visual design has shifted towards a subtle blend of Dreamworks/Disney 3D animated films for characters within highly-detailed backdrops.  And though what Bioware's environmental artists accomplish here is top-shelf work, it's distracted by the waxy look of character faces.  Forgoing the series' previous grimdark aesthetic inclines a softer touch to enemy design, which in turn makes series staples like Darkspawn look more like Halloween-themed Hasbro toys than a diabolical horde trying to tear out your organs.  Hell, so much bloody viciousness is minimized here – despite the M rating.  Even Hans Zimmer & Lorne Balfe's OST often sounds lifeless or confused, especially its synth inclusions.  It's as though Bioware plopped the two in a room and gave them one-word themes to work with.  There's a fundamental mismatch here that can’t be reconciled.  


Imagine erecting a fantasy foundation with inspirations from George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie, and so on, and then blending in romance/fantasy slop like That Time I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf.  Granted, that comparison may be hyperbolic, but it speaks to the dissonance of the epic fantasy stakes latched onto such banal dialogue and cardboard companions.  There's this rich world to explore, intriguing factional dynamics to understand, and more, yet Trick Weekes, Brianne Battye, John Dombrow, & Courtney Woods' grand scheme is a poorly-written Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) campaign with a Dungeon Master pretending random curve-balls count as drama.
  
Apropos of the series, its inherent artificiality is like a Blight infestation: this sappier & ham-fisted approach spreads like wildfire across everything else.  It's not enough to gather a party of powerful misfits to save the world, you also have to be a part-time parent and cheerleader in order to keep everyone focused.  It's not enough for said companions to be the toughest and most capable, they also must be committee-approved according to modern-day standards.  It's not enough to have teammates with a measure of subtlety in their dialogue, they have to be walking exposition dumps of their every thought and feeling.  Nearly every page of this voluminous script reads like a derivative fantasy that's compulsively walking on eggshells.  

The aforementioned DnD comparison doesn't apply to Veilguard's gameplay, however; instead, Bioware refashions Kingdoms of Amalur, but with a dedicated party by your side.  Both also share similar development backstories in having live-service/MMO aims at one point.  It's an action-oriented affair with the warrior, mage, rogue triptych, each of which comes with three unique specializations within their expansive charts.  The on-paper dynamics of leveling, class builds, and so on liberally "borrow" from a wide array of other blockbuster action-RPGs, but lack any meaningful zest or nuance.  The Discount God of War template for warriors feels kinetically pleasing, and the reptilian part of my brain registering crunchy sound effects and big floating numbers gets its fill, but it's a league below Sony Santa Monica's shaky foundation thanks to a temperamental camera and – again – less gory viciousness.  Sure, its baseline gets a passing grade – especially with its consistent framerate – but only by a fraction.
  
What about when looking past the basics?  Well, forget "strategically" unifying you and your crew after seeing your two teammates without health bars.  Given their immortal status, one can't help but wonder why they're not leading the charge; of course, this is counter-balanced by their mediocre damage output.  That doesn't mean they're unhelpful.  Some can be useful supplementary healers so as to save on health potions and certain ability combos carry nice damage multipliers.  It's like Mass Effect's radial wheel only with more baby-sitting and less experimentation.  Each character can only have three ability hotkeys in the paused tactical menu, using any companion ability puts all of them on cooldown, companions occasionally disengage with a marked target, and the best course is spamming the deadliest ability combo against insanely spongy enemies.  From boss fight spectacles to enemy mosh pits, the real "challenge" you're in for with Underdog difficulty (or higher) is staying awake through the interminable slog.


Practically every enemy faction – be it undead or human – has Xeroxed enemy types, attack patterns, and puzzles.  The only difference between Darkspawn and Venatori locks are glowing red pimples or glowing red crystals, respectively.  It's not only about aesthetics.  God of War Ragnarök received some lashes – rightfully so – for basic puzzles that were hastily spelled out for you; now imagine feeling that level of condescension for even easier challenges.  Some are as rudimentary as carrying a nearby power gem back to the proper port, others have roughly the same "complexity" as a shape-matching toy for toddlers.  And though the combat isn't necessarily a cake walk, its tempo and repetitiveness also reek of amateurish design.  An easy slam dunk for a weapon expert like my Dwarf Warrior would've been to enable alternating ability hotkeys when flipping between my one-handed/shield combo and two-handed weapon, but Veliguard is allergic to creative variety.
  
Said repetition is kinder to combat than the stilted level design.  Having a magical mirror connected to every region sounds neat until you realize how disconnected they feel.  It's a collection of both one-off locales, such as an impressive underwater prison, and secondary hubs that you're constantly returning to; and yet, both types feel the same.  Sure, the cityscapes and dense forest you revisit will have more shortcuts and fast-travel beacons, but your mind's eye can perceive they were all initially designed for a live-service co-op dungeon crawler.  Instead of the layered interconnectedness of Bloodborne's Central Yharnam, imagine the top-down view of wet spaghetti noodles connected by some ladders and balance beams.  The skyboxes and backgrounds look nice, but the various pathways have no cohesion nor tangible environmental storytelling.


One can find other nitpicks around every corner: 

• Nonsensical faction rating rewards that make selling trash items to their vendors more productive than completing side quests.
• Almost all of the initial companion quests just being sauntering walky-talky segments.
• A centralized enchantment system that does encourage exploration, but its arbitrary limitations seem so pointless.  Purchasing and/or crafting your own enchantment gems to fit into any weapon or armor slots is a great staple already.
• Jump and interact are mapped onto the same button.

In the end, though, perhaps its most grievous error is stuffing in so much content without justifying itself.  The average campaign may run between 30-40 hours (northwards of 60-70 for a completionist run), but the insane onslaught of recycled enemies and various time-wasting elements are begging that tally to be sliced in half.  It's a shame to denigrate that aspect when its bugs are quite limited for a game of this scope; plus, it's nice to see EA constraining itself to just basic Standard or Deluxe Edition ($70/$80) options.  It's the "least-invasive" I've seen this publisher in ages, which only emphasizes how Bioware deserves the lion's share of the blame.
  
Dragon Age: The Veilguard may be one of the toughest games to formally review.  Yes, it deserves fair consideration for a big-budget action-RPG, published by EA no less, that's functional by definition.  While not polished to a mirror sheen, there's something to be said of such a massive experience being technically sound at release.  The question is: how much can that count against a game that feels so – dare I say – spiritually empty?  Whether it's the aesthetics, music, narrative, or gameplay, each fundamental aspect feels inauthentic to various degrees.  You're being sold a high-fantasy RPG adventure in which the combat is lobotomized, most of your decisions are of no consequence, the tone has no consistency, and the world feels shallow.  Accounting for those faults, perhaps Bioware's greatest offense is also its most ironic: making a Dragon Age game that feels pathetically toothless.

Contractor by trade and writer by hobby, Lee's obnoxious criticisms have found a way to be featured across several gaming sites: N4G, VGChartz, Gaming Nexus, DarkStation, and TechRaptor! He started gaming in the mid-90s and has had the privilege in playing many games across a plethora of platforms. Reader warning: each click given to his articles only helps to inflate his Texas-sized ego. Proceed with caution.

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