Checking in on Dragon Age Veilguard. I hit a pretty solid story beat recently; I think I'm probably out of Act I, assuming that is a thing for this game. I've finally assembled what seems to be my entire party, have some big story goals to pursue and a whole bunch of side-quests. So I wanted to write another little-ish post to capture my thoughts thus far, hoping to avoid writing too long of a novel after finally beating the game.
Let's start out with some purely mechanical notes.
The control scheme for exploration is pretty much the same as for Dragon Age Inquisition. It's been so many years since I've played that, and I'm abruptly reminded of how funny and mildly frustrating it is that "jump" and "use" are bound to the same key. Rook runs up to someone and hops up in the air when he wants to talk. Comes across a treasure chest and does a happy little hop. Comes across a door: do you pick the lock? Bash it down? Turn the knob? Nope: just jump straight up!
I do really appreciate the simplified inventory system. Armor just comes in complete sets, not individual pieces. New armor equipment drops from large treasure chests (marked on the map) or after clearing a stage; you can preview the equipment compared to your current piece and decide whether to swap or not. Each companion has their own separate gear, so you never need to sort through hand-me-downs. Equipment (armor, weapons, rings, runes) are never sold. You do sell miscellaneous items you pick up in the world, which in previous games were labeled "junk" or "trash". They are exactly the same in this game, except they've been rebranded as "valuables".
One mild annoyance is that there is an optimal way to sell the "valuables". Certain items are favored by particular vendors, so you're better off selling to them; you could also sell to other vendors for far less benefit. The only way to discover this is to travel around six different zones (with long loading times each) before selling to anyone, or else to pull up this Google Sheet and have it in front of you while you're deciding what to sell.
On the plus side, there's no carry limit for quantity or encumbrance, so you can skip past my absolute least favorite RPG activity; instead, just focus on playing the game, and sell the trash-er-I-mean-valuables when you need the cash.
None of this is remotely realistic, of course. Even less realistic is how finding a duplicate piece of equipment will upgrade the rarity of the existing piece you have: by definition, wouldn't it become less rare after you find two? But as a system it works great. Your gear keeps advancing: when you upgrade the level of one piece, every other piece in the category advances as well; and when you find a new piece, even if it isn't one you plan to use, it removes that from the pool and increases the odds of finding a piece you do want.
The world is pretty cool, although I've been spoiled by Elden Ring and to a lesser extent Baldur's Gate 3. DA:V feels like Inquisition, with large zones rather than an "open world". Each has its own unique atmosphere, whether a dripping gloomy swamp or a bright sunlit forest or a bustling dockside neighborhood. They do feel a bit generic fantasy-y, not as striking and original as Elden Ring... but that's okay, there is comfort in familiarity.
I do like how exploring pushes out the world as you uncover more of a zone's map but also connects earlier parts as well. You'll open doors that were locked on the other side, push down a tree to cross the canyon to where you originally came from. This makes subsequent travels through the area quicker and easier. It reminds me a lot of Elden Ring dungeon design, which eliminated back-tracking by providing shortcuts back to the start. But in Elden Ring it tended to be for one-time travel after finishing a dungeon or a streamlining the path to the boss. In DAV the entire world is linked like this, letting you cross-cross and move through the map more quickly and easily as the result of your previous exploration work.
There are a lot of different types of puzzles in the game. The rules seem inconsistent - when holding an arcane cube you can't jump. The types of puzzles tend to cluster by areas: arcane beams around fade portals, blight boils in blighted areas, wisps in the necropolis. The puzzles are fine, probably more enjoyable than the stand-alone puzzles like astrolobes in DAI. One thing that's a little annoying (as with navigation in general) is that it isn't clear when a particular puzzle can't be solved yet, you'll need to leave the area and come back after opening another door or something.
Non-systemic puzzles have been good, nothing earth-shattering but also nothing too frustrating or difficult. Like one where you needed to make three statues point a certain way, and if you explore around the area you'll find miniature statues pointing the way you want. I did really enjoy a companion conversation back at the base where we griped about needing to solve puzzles to get loot - I think my Rook said something is, "I dislike random puzzles. There has to be some sort of a purpose!" Dragon Age has had some really good lampshading in the past, and this is right up there: we're playing in a universe where people are obsessed with putting annoying puzzles in their dungeons to thwart adventurers.
Combat also... I was going to say that it's like Inquisition, but it isn't. What is like Inquisition is enemy placement: there's a regular trickle of "trash fights," infinitely respawning low-to-mid-level enemies. You can get small amounts of XP and gold or trinkets from killing them. But they end up serving as resources in level progress. In Inquisition you could build up stuff like Guard from low-level fights and carry that into a boss fight. Similarly, in Veilguard you can get Momentum or power up your Ultimate from those trash fights, and enter the boss fight with a much stronger punch than if you had just entered directly from the quick-travel spawn-in point.
Having played this some more, I really get now why people compare it with Mass Effect: it's basically exactly like that. You have two companions with you. They can never die. They fight on autopilot, but you can order their targets, and command them to use their special abilities on cooldown. You want to plan cross-team builds to use primers and detonators. I'm not complaining - Mass Effect combat was fun - but it is a shift from the previous Dragon Age games (which, to be fair, were each radically different from one another).
That said, for party composition I've mostly ignored companion builds or synergy. At first I prioritized bringing the people I liked. Then I started bringing people most relevant to the area. Now I'm also bringing the lowest-bonded to get their relation meter up; I think this advances when they complete a side-quest with you. I'll sometimes bring a strong and synergistic team if I'm specifically expecting a big fight and not exploration.
A quick note on the save system: after dealing with sparse and limited save points in Elden Ring, it has felt really refreshing to be able to save anywhere at any time (at least outside of combat). That said, it isn't a true save: previously-defeated non-boss enemies usually come back after loading a save, and if you've, say, burst three of five Blight boils, save and quit for the night, when you reload the next day you'll need to burst all five again. That hasn't been a big annoyance, and I'll still take it over Elden Ring style saves, but I've also started to make sure my end-of-day saves are at the end of a section and not in the middle when I can help it.
MINI SPOILERS
Early in the game, I was a bit struck by the casual language; in particular, some characters like Bellara have speech patterns closer to a modern teen than the standard faux-received-pronounciation generally associated with fantasy. Casual dialogue (with lots of modern swears!) has always been a part of the series but feels more pronounced now. Though, that also may be my reaction playing this game in my 40s vs playing Origins in my 20s; the characters here feel young but they're probably around the same age as people in Origins and Dragon Age 2. (Well, other than Wynn!)
Steam says I've played for 34 hours, which seems about right. I've spent a bit of time in the menus but not a ridiculous amount. I'm doing my standard RPG thing of trying to exhaust all side-quests before proceeding with the main game. Giving a slightly spoilery rundown of my game so far (mega spoilers for Inquisition):
My Rook is a male Qunari Rogue, somewhat recently taking the Veil Ranger specialization to focus on archery. He was a Shadow Dragon in Tevinter, and sees himself as a warrior defending the oppressed from the powerful, particularly breaking up slaving rings but more broadly anyone misusing their influence or authority. He would theoretically have some sympathy for Solas's crusade against the Elven gods, but is fixated on Solas's willingness to sacrifice innocent human life to tear down the veil, and as a result is consistently hostile to Solas in all our communications.
I think I mentioned earlier that Rook left the Mayor to deal with the consequences of the Blight, seeing it as a way to punish the putative leader for sacrificing his people. When the Evunaris attacked the cities, Rook opted to defend Minrathous first, mostly because of his affinity with the Shadow Dragons; once he could reach Antiva, though, he focused on clearing all the Blight possible.
I've recruited all companions, just recently getting Taash on board. I like all of them; Davrin is probably the one who has surprised me the most by how quickly he's growing on me, at first he seemed like a pretty generic Gray Warden but he has a really great personality, and I strongly relate to his bond with his griffin, which is a mix of affection, exasperation, humor and worry. I'm mostly flirting with Harding and Bellara, though I haven't committed to anyone yet.
The last major story thing was fighting Ghilan'nain and her dragon during the Siege of Weishaupt, which was a nicely epic sequence. I really loved how the companions you didn't bring in the party participated in the assault, which felt a bit like the action in Mass Effect Citadel. The boss fight was hard and fun; some annoying camera issues where a dragon's neck fills the screen so you can't see any of the dozen other enemies running around, and there's a recurring issue where you can get knocked into the water and insta-die-and-respawn, but even with those glitches I had a blast.
I continue to understand why reviewers compare this game to Mass Effect, and right now I'm particularly getting a Mass Effect 2 vibe: we've assembled this team of People With Particular Skills, and the explicit goal now is to Help People Solve Their Personal Problems so they can Focus On The Bad Guy. I'm not complaining! Mass Effect 2 was great, I'm already enjoying the Veilguard companions and expect to like them even more as I get to know them better.
Oh, and before I forget, I was a little bummed that so little of the world state from the first three games comes forward into this one, but it was fun to see the Inquisitor pop back up again. I kind of wish I had spent more time designing her; I decided that my first PC Aztar Cadash will be my canonical Inquisitor for this game, and she is a dwarf with darkish skin and short reddish hair, but really doesn't look much like my original one. I'm wondering now if a fan will ever build a tool to extract the Inquisition sliders (either from a save file or the Keep) and give steps on rebuilding them in Veilguard. But (a) the fact this game takes place a decade later does give at least some plausibility to looking different, and (b) having (who I think is) the original voice actor(s) back is hugely convincing.
More broadly, I am legitimately enjoying seeing (literally) old faces popping back up again. I was surprised to see Isabella make another appearance, I think she was MIA in Inquisition, other than maybe a War Table mission or two? She is visibly aged, which I honestly enjoy, it helps the world feel grounded and real. And somewhat similarly, seeing Morrigan appear was fantastic; she has not visibly aged, which makes a lot of sense given she is (a) a witch, and (b) Flemeth's child. But her style has changed (arguably more so than Isabella's), which gives the same sense of growth, that each person is the star of their own story and we get to see these stretches where we intersect.
END SPOILERS
So yeah, I'm definitely enjoying this game; it's too early to weigh in on how this compares with the earlier ones, at first it wasn't gripping me as strongly as I'd hoped but now that I have the team together and the main story has kicked in I'm getting a kick out of it. I'm looking forward to playing more and writing more about it!
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