by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $13.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
If you’re in the mood for some colourful hack and slash (or spell and dash) action through genuinely gorgeous environments with engaging boss fights and occasional story beats that land, you’ll have an okay time.
It has been ten years since the last Dragon Age game. That’d be Dragon Age: Inquisition, and a whole lot has changed in the gaming landscape. RPGs, generally speaking, have skewed a little more intricate lately. Think of smash hit titles like Baldur’s Gate 3 or Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, both undeniably excellent and both chockers with nerdy details, complex systems and buildcrafting. You’ve also got mid-tier CRPGs like Rogue Trader and Disco Elysium doing surprisingly robust business. Basically, mainstream gamers seem a lot more open to expansive, rich experiences with a lot going on under the hood. Which makes it all the more puzzling when Dragon Age: The Veilguard is revealed to be a streamlined, complexity averse and stunningly simplified experience, albeit one that has its modest charms.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard lets you play as Rook, a self-generated character from human, dwarf, elf, or qunari races, with the skills of a rogue, mage, or warrior. Rook can be male, female or a variety of trans or non-binary options. In fact, you can play as pretty much anything except a voluptuous woman… Once you’ve conquered the character creator, players will find themselves thrust into a high fantasy adventure, which features a returning number of Dragon Age characters, most notably the trickster Elven God, Solas. After a brisk and engaging intro, Rook and friends manage to stop Solas’ shenanigans but accidentally unleash a duo of evil Gods who are going to turn the land of Thedas into a Blight-infested hell of monsters and disease. So, it’s up to Rook to gather their party, improve their gear and kill some damn deities.
A lot has changed in this latest Dragon Age entry. The series has always had a somewhat malleable identity, with the dark turn-based Dragon Age: Origins feeling very different to the more action-focused Dragon Age 2 and similarly distinct from wider war table antics of Dragon Age: Inquisition, but Veilguard is absolutely the biggest departure thus far. See, rather than offer an open world to explore and get lost in, Veilguard has a much more narrow focus, launching missions and side missions in a distinctly linear fashion. Think 2018’s God of War, a game that Veilguard owes a lot to in a number of areas. While this cuts down on open world bloat (something that has been getting quite dull in recent years), it also means that the worldbuilding and storytelling feels oddly truncated and a lot more shallow.
The tone, also, is drastically different from previous entries with the art direction looking like nothing less than high fantasy Pixar, and dialogue skewing distinctly Young Adult. There’s nothing wrong with those two choices, per se, but it may put series veterans off or be a pain point for those seeking something with a little more meat on the bones. The exploration of social issues, and gender identity in particular (something the series has addressed quite skilfully before) feels ham-fisted and inorganic this time around, verging on the mawkish exposition of an after school special at times.
On the upside, the environments are gorgeous, and the combat is a lot of fun, feeling much more like Mass Effect or the aforementioned God of War. Mind you, as the game wears on, you may find yourself tiring of these simplified battles as The Veilguard is a 50-70 hour time commitment. Still, the action certainly fares better than the decision making (the meat and potatoes of BioWare’s older games), which now feels shallow and rarely impactful. The dialogue choices too are very bland, with few if any options to play as a right bastard. In fact, this bevelling of any edge occurs throughout the entire game, constantly making safe, sanitised choices about uncomplicated, nuance-free situations. This won’t be terminal for younger players, or for people who just want to blast through the game to get into fights and collect loot, but it’s a far cry from the previous games and takes a lot of the “roleplaying” out of this RPG.
BioWare has made some cracking games before and after the consecutive disappointments of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, they really needed to knock this one out of the park. Sadly, Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn’t quite the game it needed to be. It’s a simplified RPG-lite at a time when the opposite is surfing the zeitgeist wave. It’s a glib Marvel-esque romp when most people are yearning for something with a little more substance. It’s a safe, corporate approved and shallow exploration of themes that have been delved into far more interestingly over the last ten years.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn’t a bad game, but it does feel like it’s playing it safe to a fault. If you’re in the mood for some colourful hack and slash (or spell and dash) action through genuinely gorgeous environments with engaging boss fights and occasional story beats that land, you’ll have an okay time. But if you’re expecting the next Baldur’s Gate 3, or hell, the next Dragon Age: Inquisition, you’re probably going to feel a little disappointed that this is what BioWare spent ten long years cooking up.
