You’ve been misled – the truth about Dragon Age Veilguard

There’s no doubt that Dragon Age The Veilguard – by the way, am I the only person who completely missed the THE from the title and just called it Veilguard for the longest time? – has come under fire from all corners of the internet. There are those that say it’s good, those who say it’s bad, and those who really don’t like the… shall we say progressive attitude of the new game. When the game first came out, I was torn in every direction, and ultimately dismissed it as another poor showing from a triple A developer. But, after a friend who was also critical of the game recommended that I actually give it a try, that’s exactly what I did. So here I am 60 hours later, after completing every mission, companion quest, region quest, and all that other jazz to tell you the truth about Dragon age the Veilguard. Is it just a woke RPG that deserves to burn in the fires of Mordor alongside my high school French teacher who laughed at my hairy legs, or is it worthy of the Dragon Age title?

Let’s start with an outline before exploring further. See, both of these camps – the people who criticise the game and those who love it – are factually correct. Every single TikTok and YouTube short of clipped gameplay footage does actually happen in the game, but many of these instances have been taken out of context. For example, Taash, the companion who identifies as non binary, does have those conversations with her (or their, however you want to play this) mother because her companion questline is about them finding their identity. But, those are the only times this is mentioned. So, while I can see why some players would be frustrated by this, because it is a video game set in a fantasy world after all and we all just want some escapism, it doesn’t really get in the way of your enjoyment of the game. Plus, this content is completely optional. 

Other criticisms are related to how the game looks. It’s true, characters look strangely shiny and dough-like, especially compared to the other games. Characters from the previous game pop up again, and some of them, like Dorian, look completely different. This, again, is true, and a little disappointing. However, we have to remember that the game is set a decade after Inquisition, so if the characters all looked the same, Bioware would have to explain why they all happened to be vampires as well.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Dragon Age The Veilguard DOES have issues. There are some mechanics that aren’t very well explained, the character animations can be janky as all hell, and it definitely lacks the polish of, say, a first-party Sony game like Horizon. What struck me the most during my 60-ish hours of game time is that the pacing of the story is off. Without spoiling anything, the game is very backloaded, and a lot of the decisions you make or quests you complete don’t really get talked about again until much later. Then there are the curious cases of the romance options. The issue here is that all the characters you can romance get romanced on a different timeline. So, in my playthrough, I was romancing Harding and Bellara, but I reached a point with Harding quite early on that forces me to either commit or reject her, so I had to make an on-the-spot decision, which felt unfair and left a sour taste in my mouth. 

Early on, there’s also a decision you have to make about saving two different areas, and the consequences of this reach right until the end of the game. The problem is that it doesn’t really tell you this, and you haven’t had enough time to get to know the companions which it can affect either. Again, like a lot of Veilguard’s issues, the game just doesn’t seem very well thought out at a base level. But, saying this, these are more frustrations rather than deal breakers. 

In fact, most of the criticism you’ve heard of or come to know about are just that: small niggling frustrations. I myself was ready to write the game off after hearing about the quote unquote wokeness and the jank, thinking that it was a game made not to offend anyone, and to a certain extent that’s true. Most of the characters in the game have been desexualised, with revealing outfits of the past and bosoms exploding out of the tops of shirts done away with. Disappointing as a pervert? Yes. A reason to give the game 0/10? No. 

Dragon Age Veilguard does a great job of focusing on character relationships, and each compassion questline is uniquely interesting. The overarching story follows on from Dragon Age Inquisition and is likewise just as engaging. The game does lack some of that older Bioware charm of games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins, and the world of Veilguard is much smaller in scope than even Inquisition, but that game was also made fun of because you stayed in the Hinterlands for like 3 quarters of it. 

If you’re seeing a theme here, it’s that many players seem to have forgotten that Bioware is like Bethesda: their games are always way too ambitious and release with a bunch of issues. Similarly, people seem to have forgotten that Inquisition was also received with mixed opinions because it was deemed to MMO-like, with all kinds of boring quests like killing 10 gerbils. So, if we discount Inquisition, you have to go all the way back to 2011 to Dragon Age 2 to get a “true” Dragon Age game. But even then, those old enough to remember when that game came out, people were angry that it had too much action and not enough strategy like Dragon Age Origins. The moral of the story here is that gamers like to complain. This has, however, made me ponder one question: what makes a Dragon Age game a true Dragon Age game? Let me know in the comments, because I’m not sure I even have an answer to that. And don’t say dragons. 

With all of this said, I’m very glad I gave Dragon Age The Veilguard a chance. Issues aside, Veilguard is a great addition to the Dragon Age franchise, and if you’ve been eying up the game but holding off because of all the mockery that’s happened, then I would ignore a lot of the worst rhetoric and reconsider giving it a try. You might find that there are things that annoy you and might not be to your tastes, but Veilguard is still a game that I sunk 60 hours into and got the platinum trophy for, which isn’t something I can say about many big budget games made by huge studios these days.

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