Preview: Dragon Age: The Veilguard could be Bioware back at its best

The demo for Dragon Age: The Veilguard that we saw during Summer Game Fest Play Days was a million times better than the trailer at the Xbox Showcase.

Now that Dragon Age fans have breathed that collective sigh of relief, let us tell you why.

Dragon Age as a franchise means different things to different people, and as such, it’s a difficult thing to bring back. Inquisition was a slow-grower, Dragon Age 2 made changes to make the game more mainstream, leaving fans of the first game wondering why they were left behind.

In many ways, Dragon Age: The Veilguard faces the exact same challenge that Mass Effect: Andromeda faced when it attempted to move on from Bioware’s other staple franchise. Bioware has to make a game that caters to new players, while also rewarding long-term fans, and producing a massive AAA RPG in a market that’s never been more perilous.

Not only that, the fantasy RPG genre received an all-time classic last year in Baldur’s Gate 3. While that’s not a 1-to-1 comparison, it’s one that will be made by the wider audience of players.

During our demo, we got to see the game’s opening hour. This included the character creator which seems incredibly deep and exactly what  RPG fans want. Most excitingly for us, according to Bioware, all armor and clothing options will scale and mesh to any body type, a flexibility that’s rarely seen in RPGs of this scale.

There are four races in Dragon Age: Veilguard. The Elf (the character archetype you just pictured is exactly correct), The Qunari (hulking bodybuilders with horns on their heads), The Dwarf (handy in a pub brawl, vertically challenged) and the human (boring).

Next up you choose your class from the warrior, mage, or rogue. Beyond that, there are subclasses too, and dozens of abilities, and spells and not to mention the weapons and armor, and at this point in our demo, we were in.

Bioware has absolutely doubled down on the RP in RPG. You can choose your character’s backstory and how they relate to the game’s factions. Dialogue options are in full swing, and NPCs will remember when you chuck a shopkeeper through a plate-glass window.

The game’s story sees Solas intact a plot that will result in the deaths of thousands. When his justification that “people die, it’s what they do,” falls on deaf ears, you and your merry band of misfits have to stop him.

The game has both action combat, and pause and play strategy combat, in a shrewd move that will hopefully please both church and state. If you want, you’ll never once have to stop the game and assign attacks, and do admin for your party. You can play Dragon Age: The Veilguard as an action game, and it looks like a great one

Combat looks fast, and varied, with melee weapons, ranged weapons, and spells to fill out your arsenal. How much of that will be respectable for each character is yet to be seen, but as we watched the demo, visions of second third and fourth previews with totally different character builds sprung to life.

If you want to be an armchair general and make sure that every single action is planned out to your exact specifications, you can do that too. It really does feel like there was a meeting at this game’s inception to make sure that every little bit of every Dragon Age game that fans liked is included.

This isn’t an attempt to redefine what Dragon Age is, it’s just a total refinement of the best of what’s come before it. For example, the game will bring back healing magic. On the surface, a fairly mundane change and something that most players won’t notice, but Bioware was keen to emphasise that it’s only back because the hardcore fans wanted it so badly.

This isn’t fan service for the sake of it, it’s smart choices that make for a better game. There is some fan service, like the return of Scout Harding, a character from a previous title that while a minor figure in that game, gained a following. Now she’s back, not only as a companion, but players have the ability to fully romance her too.

There was some understandable sour faces following Dragon Age’s showing at the Xbox Game Showcase, but we’re very happy to say that they are unfounded. Our demo was exciting, and engaging and made us desperate to see the next 50 to 100 hours of game. No Guardians of the Galaxy dialogue, no weird versions of pop classics, just a hulking Bioware RPG, something that’s been sadly missing in gaming for too long.

Few demos this weekend felt as confident, as complete, and as engaging. Bringing back Dragon Age was a gamble, but from what we’ve seen, it appears to have paid off massively.