Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been through the production wringer. From layoffs at Bioware to a name change or two, depending on which reports you look to, the latest in the beloved franchise is finally ready for a preview. At Summer Game Fest 2024, we got the chance to watch an hour of gameplay, which effectively encompasses the game’s prologue. With returning companions like Varic and Solas, the establishment of former side characters into full companions, and new ones, the first hour of Dragon Age: The Veilguard can be defined as one thing: beautiful.
With a focus on story, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s prologue takes the time to introduce the player to the world. Nine years after Dragon Age 3, both in the real world and in-game, the characters are much older. Varic isn’t a ginger so much as a grizzled gray fox now, and Solas, well, he doesn’t have the world’s best interest at heart anymore. A heroic adventure, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is built on three core pillars. One, “Be who you want.” Two, create “a world worth saving.” Finally, three, “inspire a team of unforgettable characters.”
In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, your former companion Solas is the Dread Wolf and an Elven Trickster god of legend. Only instead of being by your side, in the nine years since the story left off, he wants to tear down the Veil that separates Thedas from the world of demons, restoring his people’s immortality and glory and sacrificing thousands in the process. But when his ritual goes awry, two of his most ancient and powerful adversaries are released. They seek only to finish what they started millennia ago – the complete and utter domination of our world.
To stop these newly released gods, you are known as Rook, battling on the front lines alongside your companions. While Rook’s story has always been the center, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is aiming to create a cast of companions that all have deep backstories. Some new and some evolved since you last met them. All of them, however, will be more than just a person to run quests with.
In the Summer Game Fest live hands-off demo, we got the chance to make choices for Rook. While the choices themselves branched the story and showed us a personality, it was how seamlessly the game moved from action to cutscene that took my breath away. Truth be told, I’m not in the audience of cinematic games. I want complex gameplay and combat—a game that looks like and is a simple as a movie just doesn’t get me excited. Here, however, every cutscene is clearly building toward something larger, and as a prologue, I’m optimistic that the balance between cutscene and player action is more balanced. A prologue is a prologue, after all.
What we saw of Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s combat is outstanding. A combat ability wheel that allows for a pause in combat, the truth is that position matters. Sure, you can brute force your way through certain combat actions, but at the same time, each class (warrior, rogue, or mage) is subject to positioning. An accessibility option, the path tracing of enemies ranged attacks helped showcase the feature, but it also showcased how important strategy will be during fights.
A visual representation of a fight’s bombardment, the accessibility feature will easily help you during combat if you choose, but for this demonstration, it drove home the complexity of the combat in an extremely effective way. Coupled with the ability wheel that briefly pauses the fight to allow you to position yourself and plan your next attack, combat feels dynamic and fluid. Additionally, the animations that accompany combination attacks and status effects are extremely gorgeous. The animations associated with combat are complex for one reason: responsive character features.
At the very beginning of our demo, the developers made two things clear: they tried their best to respond to comments about Dragon Age hairstyles, and they thought about the way different lighting affects your character. If you’ve ever played a high-fidelity game, it is true that a good old Lego hair treatment can ruin immersion. However, for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the development team at Bioware has used a new hair strand technology that allows for individual strand development on Rook and other characters. Visually? The hair strand technology is unmatched.
Reactive to its environment, character hair is a standout. But the other element that accompanies improved hair technology is the thoughtful inclusion of thick curly hair and capturing the tightly curled texture of Black hairstyles and natural hair. One element of the character creator, Rook embodies the first pillar that the developers said drove the game’s development: Be Who You Want.
In doing so, Dragon Age: The Veilguard continues the important Bioware signature of creating characters that reflect the player. The robust character creator hosts body sliders that allow for the customization of every feature from as simple as a brow to the width of your shoulders and, of course, a much-welcomed broad spectrum of skin tones—capturing both cool and warm undertones of both white and brown skin. A shade range that is as Tirtir’s foundation compacts.
The character creator also allows the player to select different types of lighting. This allows you to create your Rook in a way that looks in lighting available outside the character creator. What looks good in one light doesn’t always transfer to cutscenes. Here, however, you can fine-tune your character and ultimately, the way that they are carried through to cinematics is both thoughtful and unique, highlighting the clear beauty of Dragon Age: The Veilgaurd.
Truthfully, there wasn’t a game that matched the depth of fidelity that transferred seamlessly from gameplay action to cinematics. While character appearance is one element of this, the responsiveness of clothing is also an important factor. There is nothing stiff about character movement, and that translates to clothes as much as hair. This adds depth to the environments you move through and keeps you engaged. This is also replicated with each and every NPC.
I’m sure other Summer Game Fest previews will have a lot to say on the evolving relationship between Varic and Solas, the role Rook will play, or even the larger lore developments that this one hour of gameplay impacts. For me, though, it was the game’s beauty that captured just how far the series has come in nine years and how refined it is, with still another quarter to go before launch. I’m not one to harp on graphics usually, but when something this special presents itself, it’s hard not to be swept away by it.
