I can not cease observing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Whether or not I am exploring the sport’s dwelling base within the dream-like Fade, or a forest shimmering with golden leaves and wild magical vitality, the sport merely seems beautiful. And, in case you’ve received the graphical horsepower to see it, it additionally delivers a few of the most luxurious ray tracing I’ve ever seen. There is a degree of polish throughout each facet of the sport, together with its new action-oriented method to fight, that is merely wonderful to behold.
Veilguard continues the story of the decade-old Dragon Age Inquisition, which was most notable for the stunning ending of its DLC. It turned out that Solas, certainly one of your extra cantankerous companions, was really an Elven god hellbent on destroying the Veil, a boundary he created to separate the actual world from the spirit-filled Fade. Oh, and that is the place he additionally trapped much more evil Elven gods. Solas thought of himself a hero, however then once more, so did Marvel’s Thanos.
This time round, you play as Rook, a brand new recruit enlisted by collection common Varric to trace down Solas earlier than he tears down the Veil. That occurs prior to you’d assume — your staff finds him and stops his magical ritual in your first mission. However doing so unleashes two very pissed off Elven gods, who proceed to wreak havoc throughout Thedas.
BioWare wastes no time displaying off its new aesthetic for Dragon Age. The sport’s characters are extra stylized than in Inquisition, however I did not thoughts the slight loss in realism. If something, it makes this entry really feel extra distinct from earlier Dragon Age titles. The sense of fashion carries over to each atmosphere, as nicely. The Lighthouse, your base of operations, is a surprising collection of medieval buildings floating in the course of a dreamy, magical storm. I’d typically discover myself simply staring off into the gap of the Fade, imagining what else lay past the horizon. That’s one thing I discovered myself doing in each new location, the element on the planet hints at 1000’s of untold tales.
For a recreation that was , and suffered some (together with dropping its authentic inventive director, Mike Laidlaw), Dragon Age: The Veilguard is surprisingly well-constructed. And all through my twenty hours with the sport (thus far), it’s that degree of craft and high quality I respect probably the most.
Whereas the storyline is not precisely groundbreaking, I have not been in a position to put down Dragon Age: The Veilguard as a result of it is such a pleasure to play. The brand new fight system is extra action-oriented than earlier than (consider the distinction between Mass Impact 1 and 2), with counters and particular strikes harking back to the latest God of Struggle. You’ll be able to’t instantly management your companions, however you possibly can have them deploy particular skills that may both help you or assault your enemies. It is a well-balanced system that makes small encounters really feel genuinely enjoyable, and it permits for some epic boss fights (a few of which have lasted practically 10 minutes and left my controller a sweaty mess).
As you degree up, you possibly can tweak your character to your liking with Veilgaurd’s large talent tree. I’ve honed my Rook to be a lightning-fast dual-sword wielding Rogue who is not afraid to whip out her bow for the occasional headshot. (It’s also possible to select from Warrior and Mage courses early on, which must be fairly self-explanatory.) Every talent tree has three specializations: Rogues, for instance, can select to be Veil Rangers (an archery emphasis), Saboteurs (specializing in traps and poison) or Duelists. Personally, I am a sucker for the Duelist’s double sword motion.
Battles can get hectic, and fortunately Dragon Age: The Veilguard performs nicely sufficient to maintain up. Whereas enjoying on a PC powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and NVIDIA RTX 4080 Tremendous GPU, the sport managed to remain nicely above 100fps whereas enjoying in 4K with DLSS, “Ultra” graphics and ray tracing settings. If in case you have the {hardware} to help it, this can possible grow to be a brand new showpiece for the probabilities of ray tracing: Lighting from the solar and magical parts realistically hits characters and the atmosphere, and shadows throughout the board look extra pure.
However I used to be additionally shocked to seek out that Veilguard was additionally nonetheless very playable on my Steam Deck, albeit with low graphics settings (undoubtedly no ray tracing) and a primary 30-to-40fps. That is definitely not the perfect strategy to play, but it surely’s useful for coping with aspect missions in mattress, or on the go. Given how nicely it performs on a mere handheld, I might wager the sport would play nicely on low-end and mid-range GPUs, in addition to consoles, with out a lot of a sweat. (And if you wish to enjoy superior ray tracing options out of your sofa, there’s for the .)
Past merely trying nice, Veilguard saved me hooked due to BioWare’s consideration to its characters. I loved strolling by Docktown with Neve, who warmed as much as my character (additionally a fellow Shadow Dragon) whereas discussing how a lot she liked her rundown neighborhood. I helped Davrin come to phrases together with his new function elevating one of many final Griffons on the planet, and I discovered concerning the trauma behind Bella’s usually heat demeanor. As normal, you possibly can romance any of your companions (how will you not love Neve?), and there’s nonetheless loads of enjoyable available making an attempt to arrange these relationships.
I’ll admit, it merely felt good to pour some hours main a bunch of ragtag do-gooders to save lots of the world in opposition to relentless odds. That’s just about each RPG and journey story, certain, however who can deny the pleasure of killing a couple of evil gods? (Bringing on the mixed abilities of composers Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe to attain the sport possible additionally made me a bit extra emotional.)
After Baldur’s Gate 3 did not seize me (I’ll get again to it, I swear!), I feared that Dragon Age: The Veilguard could be one other letdown. However it turned out to be precisely the kind of spectacle I wanted: It’s stunning to behold, enjoyable to play and I genuinely loved the brand new batch of characters. It’s BioWare at its greatest – I’m simply hoping they will do the identical for the .
