Topic: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Wanted to start this thread for a game I've waited patiently for 10 years. Dragon Age series has a special place in my heart so I won't deny that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is my most anticipated game this year. Ngl I was a bit worried after the first trailer in Xbox Showcase but afterwards with all the different updates coming from the team and the gameplay videos I feel the game would be a great hit.

Anyone else is planning to play it? Which class and origin are you gonna choose? What's the most important thing you're looking forward to in the game?

I'm actually looking forward to visit Minrathous for the first time ever. I'm planning to start as Mage - Human and I'm really looking forward to strengthen my relationship with Harding <3

I was skeptical about the changes they made to the gameplay but the last couple of videos have changed my mind and I actually like what I saw.

Here's the videos for reference: https://youtu.be/O2UEqn38s9U?si=AdJCzqibmMFthkSQ

Not going to lie, I'm super disappointed of the direction this game has gone.

But to be fair I had quite optimistic/unfair expectations. I was hoping they'd lean more towards Origins dark fantasy crpg roots, but instead they went for more actiony and flashy.

I get why their doing it, try to catch the attention of new player and maybe seem more inviting to the casual crowd.

I hope it turns out good and that the target audience get a fulfilling adventure. Bioware sure could use a win right about now.

@LuXifer Fair point and I know some friends who felt the same. NGL the first few marketing pieces especially the companions trailer was pretty bad but since then they released some great marketing stuff. I would recommend for you to watch the Hands-on that was published by IGN as part of IGN First. It's really promising and for me it was the best thing I've seen from the game so far.

You can check it out here: https://youtu.be/PICaSntfB4c

I am very much in the "Origins is the best DA, Inquisition was a mistake" crowd. But I don't dislike Inquisition's dramatic change in direction for the series inherently, so much as I just think the execution was just bad pretty much universally across the board.

I dunno yet whether Veilguard will be better, but at least from what they've shown on paper, I have hope. Maybe a dangerous amount.

The boring open world full of busy work rubbish appears to be gone (wahoo!), it also seems like generally a shorter, more story focused, experience which is all music to my ears.

Combat has been completely refocused and weirdly seems to be somehow both more action focused and also more tactically focused than Inquisition was. We won't know until its in our own hands how it all feels, I am a little worried about how combat will flow if you are constantly pulling up the tactics wheel, but I think it would be hard to have worse combat than Inquisition.

I also know this one is more of a taste thing, but I think Inquisition had horrid art direction. Like from a sheer fidelity standpoint that game still looks incredible even to this day. But I don't know whether its an engine issue (possibly not as I think this game is in the same engine) but I just thought the skin, the hair, the eyes, the textures on clothing, just all sorts of stuff just looked horrible in Inquisition. Almost every returning face from Inquisition has had an absurd glowup for my tastes. The only thing I ain't all that impressed by is yet another redesign of the Qunari and this one looks like the worst one yet.

@Pizzamorg That is good to know that the open world nonsense is no more, as that also dragged the experieanexperiencece down for me, as well as stuff like having go back to the war table all the time. Inquistion was ny first Dragon Age game, so I don't have a particular fondance for the series. I thought I didn't like the game, but turns out I played for over 200 hours! 😆

Well you forget @JohnnyShoulder that 150 hours of your playtime was running around finding or killing x thing in the Hinterlands, bloating and warping how much you played 😂

@Pizzamorg While I really liked Inquisition but I actually agree with you about the open world thing. I liked the DA Origins linear areas style more and I guess The Veilguard is going back to this style. While I know a lot of people was really hoping that Veilguard will be more a classic RPG like Origins but I wasn't a big fan of Origins gameplay tbh and I felt in love with the series because of how good the story and the world was at Origins.

And yes those Qunari styles they showed so far in The Veilguard are terrible but damn they did a great overhaul for Scout Harding which makes me happy

I'm getting more and more optimistic as we're getting close to the launch and I hope it'll live to my expectations and be a great redeem for BioWare.

Ok the previews are in and they're great. From what I read/ saw so far it looks like most previews agree that the game is much better than we've seen so far and I really liked what VG247 preview wrote here:

"Back in June, I compared Dragon Age’s latest outing to Final Fantasy 16, another franchise sequel that is really rather good but that also visibly struggles to grapple with its franchise legacy and the shadow cast by the likes of God of War 2018. But actually, The Veilguard appears to have navigated those choppy waters with a far defter hand - and the result left me absolutely chomping at the bit to experience the final, full thing."

"The Veilguard’s greatest inspiration, at least in structure, appears to be both Mass Effect 2 and 3. These are BioWare’s finest games, so that’s no bad thing - but then layered atop this is a far deeper, and far more D&D-faithful RPG progression offering."

I don't know if it's fine to post links here but check Arekkz Gaming, Skill Up, Gamespot and Euro Gamer previews if you can

@Khwarezm89 It seems to me that they've only really allowed people who they know or have been paid to give them positive reviews, so that's why where seeing alot of positive reviews. Most of these sources are IGN, Eurogamer type journalists who really have no bearing on what I would call trusted reviewers. This is only my opinion though.

In fairness I don't care what reviewers say, reviews are also a personal opinion and should hold no sway unless you generally respect that person. I mean look at the recent trend of games like Space Marine 2 and Wukong getting 6's and 7's from these same reviewers who hailed Concord, Star Wars Outlaws ect. Again personal opinions hence my reason for not taking what these reviewers say as dead certain. Also in a lot of these reviews they seem to big up the character creator more than the actual game. IGN go big on the character creator and comment the combat is great also. Very strange to me that a character creator is what is peak for enjoyment in a game.

I probably won't be playing this game, I'm disappointed they've gone away from the old looking medieval gothic style to this new cartoonish wow/fortnite style this and the modern American sounding characters just don't make me very thrilled to play it. I hope that people enjoy it and it's great for the people who do but ultimately I see it being an economic failure because they've made a game that the majority of its existing fan base don't want

I couldn’t help but notice that the recent Amazon Prime sale had this game already discounted at a fairly significant degree (17%, which is more than the standard EA Play membership 10% discount), although it appears to only be available on the UK Amazon site and is not discounted in the U.S.

It’s not too unusual to see pre-order discounts, but this is a bit of a surprise. I wasn’t planning to pick this up since I have plenty on my plate at the moment, but I wonder if EA is getting nervous about how the game might perform.

At the end of the day, I think reviews are going to really have a big effect on this game’s early reception. I feel quite curious about it and solid critical reception will help move it up the ladder on my level of interest.

@Th3solution That's pretty normal here in Germany. I'm always noticing the physical games here is cheaper even as pre-order. But speaking of this is actually interesting as EA announced few days ago that the Dragon Age: The Veilguard pre-order figures are "within expectations" in the latest investor showcase.

I pre-ordered it and right now playing my last playthrough in DAI. Out of curiosity have you played previous titles?

Edit: I just noticed that even COD and other pre-orders are part of the Prime day deals in Amazon

@Th3solution you’re the guy to ask this, I want an honest answer, would Veilgaurd be a healthy newcomer entry? Anything I gotta know I’m advance? High fantasy might be easier to get into for me. Also heard romance here is really good (not that I necessarily seek it in games, but this one in particular gives you really progressive options I heard).

Edit: meant to say “right guy”, but “guy” is funnier because it implies you’re the only human on earth I can ask this.

@Yousef- If you don't mind I jump in since this is my favorite series
From what I've seen and heard from the previews there's a lengthy recap at the beginning of the game when you first talk to one of the series legends (Varric Tethras) so he'll get you up to speed in it. That being said there's also a great recap video I saw few days ago for the games, novels, comics, Anime and movie lore. And yes Dragon Age and Mass Effect have some great romance options there.

@Khwarezm89 your input is absolutely welcome!
That’s really cool. Although my question was more gameplay related but much obliged for the heads up!

@Khwarezm89 I played a little bit of the first game, but didn’t stick with it, and quite a lot of Inquisition, but didn’t finish it. I regret never finishing Inquisition, as I was enjoying the game but I ran up against a high Dragon that I couldn’t beat and that frustration ended up being the catalyst for my eventual abandoning of the game. I was already getting some ‘open-world fatigue’ with the game and the copious amount of side content. I probably invested at least 60+ hours into the game and there was no end in sight. In retrospect I should have just skipped that dragon (which was a completely optional boss as I recall and one that I could return to later) and mainlined the game and I probably would have enjoyed it more. I came across this article from Push Square too late:
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/09/soapbox_open_world_oc...

(That article still stands as one of the early influential pieces when I first joined Push Square)

Unfortunately, as much as I’ve tried, I have a hard time overcoming the open world OCD when I play these big games and I easily get bogged down trying to do everything.

At this point, it’s unlikely that I could go back to my Inquisition save from 2015 and have any clue what’s going on. Which is regrettable since it looks like some of the decisions from your Inquisition save will port over into Veilguard.

What’s your history with the franchise?

@Yousef- Looks like our friend Khware chimed in and is more qualified to answer, but I do think there will be a fairly robust onboarding for newcomers to Veilguard. I didn’t really engage with the DA1&2 and I got along fine with DA:I, although characters show up that you’re supposed to know but it’s not a dealbreaker if you don’t have a history with them. The lore also is a common theme but it can be learned on the fly.

Gameplay-wise there was a big change from DA1 to DA:I in my experience and I think although DA:V will follow closer to DA:I, it looks quite different and so everyone will need to learn it from the outset, including those who are returning fans. When I watched the gameplay preview I was a little worried at the complexity of the combat, so we’ll have to see.

@Yousef- You're welcome! Gameplay wise I guess the new one will be action centric like Mass Effect and FFVII Remake for example. In the previous titles you could stop the screen and control your own party members and being more tactical but The Veilguard will be an Action game with some commands that you can give to your party members during the fight just like FFVII.

@Th3solution I understand what you faced with DAI and tbh the game had a lot of fetch quests which were unnecessary. I'm glad that The Veilguard will be more like mini hubs as what we've seen in DA Origins which was great. And thanks for sharing the article. It's really interesting.

Regarding my history with the series, so Dragon Age was my first Bioware's game ever and I remember how I picked DA Origins which was basically I liked the cover so I decided to try the game xD . And quickly it became my favorite game ever although I didn't enjoy the gameplay of Origins a lot but the Story and the World was fantastic. DA2 was really good when it comes to gameplay but I felt it was more an expansion than DA2. And DAI was my first game to play after marriage and it was so great for me. I had all achievements on Xbox One but now I'm playing it on my PS5 for the first time and planning to plat it before The Veilguard releases.

@Yagami My week off just got approved too xD

Oh btw guys I would recommend to listen to Vows & Vengeance podcast. It's actually great following a story of a character called Nadia while she's trying to save her friend from the fade. It'll introduce you to the Veilguard companions. You can find all episodes here: https://www.ea.com/games/dragon-age/dragon-age-the-veilguard/...