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