I’m not sold on what EA and BioWare have shown so far in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Its debut trailer tied me in too much with investing in characters I knew nothing about. The newer story trailer was definitely an improvement, but I still felt the game’s aesthetic choices were at odds with its murky fantasy.
Now, though, EA and BioWare have delivered a solid look at how the game works, or at least some of it, via a 10-minute deep dive into combat that really hits you right between the knuckles of its fantastic fists. And while I still have some reservations, it’s convinced me that I’d at least like to try playing BioWare’s latest RPG.
The deep dive starts with a quick overview of the character building elements in The Veilguard, which tend to be quite complicated. While the video focuses on the warrior build to show combat, the accompanying blog post notes that players can also experience the game as a Mage or a Rogue. Furthermore, each of these classes has three specializations, some of which sound pretty crazy. A Warrior, for example, can specialize as a Reaper, which allows them to “steal life and risk death to gain incredible unnatural abilities.” Rogues, on the other hand, can specialize as Saboteurs, which allows them to “deploy explosives and turrets that destroy enemies, then kill them with arrows.”
Each specialization can be further refined through its corresponding skill tree, where you can choose three special skills and one Ultimate skill to take with you into battle. Of course, your choice of weapons and equipment also affects how Rook plays, with swords, armor, and other items adding different effects to your character.
The video then moves on to the basics of combat, which quickly establishes The Veilguard as the most hack ‘n’ slash game in the series, even more so than Dragon Age 2. The inevitable dodge suggests at least a bit of Souls DNA in the combat, while you also get a solid-looking kick ability to knock enemies off ledges. That said, The Veilguard hasn’t completely forgotten the series’ tactical heritage. You can pause the action at any point during combat, allowing you to select abilities and issue commands to the two companions you’re bringing with you.
The third part of the video focuses on crowd control, showing Rook dashing between multiple groups of Darkspawn in a vast open area, using abilities like his shield bash and a vast AoE attack called “Titan Stomp” to destroy entire clusters of enemies on the map. It was at this point that I started thinking, “Wow, this looks really tasty.” The way Rook weaves between fights looks incredibly fluid and stylish, although the addition of exploding barrels to the battlefield is a bit tacky.
The final segment of the video shows what BioWare calls “primers, detonators, and ultimates.” The first two are setup/knockdown abilities that you can perform with your companions. For example, Rook uses a freeze ability on a group of darkspawn to hold them in place, while Rook’s companion, Lucanis, summons the spell “Eviscerate” to deal massive damage to the group. Ultimates are, of course, substantial, flashy abilities. The example shown involves Rook calling down a hail of spectral arrows, followed by a vast, exploding meteor.
By the end of the video, I had mixed feelings about what I saw. Mechanically, Veilguard combat looks impressive. The core combat feels hefty and purposeful, and I’m intrigued to see how much nuance there will be to the individual builds. That said, with all the abilities popping up, the screen gets pretty garish, and I’m not sure the UI design helps with that. At times, I felt like I was watching Diablo 3 from a third-person perspective. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing—Diablo 3 was a good game. But it’s also the game that players have the most complaints about in terms of aesthetic choices. I fear the same will be true here, no matter how good Veilguard’s story and characters turn out to be.
You can watch the full video above. I’m still not convinced that Dragon Age: The Veilguard will bring back the good venerable days of BioWare, but I’m interested in giving Darkspawn a little bit of a go now, whereas I wasn’t before. Hopefully, the upcoming deep dives into the character in Companions Week will convince me to see the other side of The Veilguard as well.
