Continue with GameStar Plus
If good games are important to you.
Special reports, analyzes and background information for role-playing heroes, hobby generals and single-player fans - from experts who know what is being played. Your advantages:
All articles, videos & podcasts from GameStar
Free of banner and video advertising
Easy to cancel online
If you ask most fans what makes Dragon Age so special, many of them will probably say the same things: great characters and a story where decisions really have an impact.
Anyone who looks after theIf you were worried that the latest part might stray too far from the roots of the series, we can reassure you straight away:The Veilguard is Dragon Age through and through.
At the same time, the fourth part brings with it some changes. This starts with the new - and absolutely fantastic - action gameplay, but also extends to the story. It gets off to a weak start, but then develops into the best of the whole series.
The balancing act between an independent story and a sequel
The first big innovation becomes clear right at the beginning:has little interest in dragging along the legacy of its predecessors. Fans are used to the decisions made in previous games also affecting the current title. There is very little of that here. This time you can only make a total of four decisions from Inquisition, which also only have a limited influence on the plot:
- Appearance and race of your Inquisitor
- Who your Inquisitor had a romance with
- Whether the Inquisition was dissolved or placed under the control of the Church
- Whether you swore to stop Solas or save him from himself
On the one hand, that makes perfect sense, after all this time we are in a completely new part of the world of Theda. For example, we visit the empire of Tevinter for the first time. In their capital Minrathous, no one actually cares who sits on the throne of Ferelden! Of course, long-time fans might still be disappointed that their previous decisions no longer have an impact here.
By the way, that doesn't mean that The Veilguard forgets its Dragon Age history. Not only do some familiar faces make an appearance alongside the Inquisitor and Varric (which of course we don't want to spoil here!), the lore of the world also plays a central role in the story.
Our heads literally exploded several times as we learned something new that changed our understanding of Thedas and even cast characters from Dragon Age Origins in a new light.
You can also watch GameStar colleague Fabiano's impression in the video here:
At the same time, The Veilguard also has to do a little balancing act. For the first time, it directly continues the story of its predecessor - albeit with a new cast of characters. The game also tries to attract newcomers. However, they are likely to quickly be confused by commonly used terms such as Venatori, Antaam and Co., which are often not explained well enough or too late.
At least the game offers a glossary where we can look up all the important terms, but it doesn't feel really elegant or organic.
When we get started, it helps that we don't play the inquisitor from the predecessor, but rather get a completely new character with Rook, as in every part. We create it right at the beginning in a detailed editor, which gives us significantly more freedom than its predecessors.
In addition to 88 hairstyles and 49 designs for Qunari horns, we can finally freely adjust the body type, for example. Slender Qunari and buff elves are finally available upon request!
We also choose from four races (human, elf, dwarf or Qunari) and decide on one of three classes: magician, fighter and rogue. Finally, we choose a background from one of the game's six important factions:
- The Veil Jumpers, securing magical artifacts in Arlathan Forest
- The Crows of Antiva, a guild of assassins
- The Shadow Dragons, who rebel against the corrupt system in Tevinter
- The Mourning Watch, who watches over the undead of the Great Necropolis
- The masters of fatewho strive for fame and gold
- The Gray Wardenswho fight against corruption
The choice affects some dialogues in the game and gives us a small bonus. As Antiva's crow, we cause more damage to Antaam opponents and can carry an additional potion.
Once all the decisions have been made and we leave the character editor (in our case) after several hours, the actual story can begin. As Rook, our target at the start is Solas – former-Companion and secret antagonist of the Invaders DLC - can be stopped.
He wants to tear down the veil that separates the world of Thedas from Nothingness - a plane that houses ghosts and demons and that would be unleashed on Thedas without this barrier.
However, this action goes terribly wrong and instead of stopping Solas, we accidentally release the evil elf gods Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain onto the world.
An incredibly good story with starting problems
The game gets off to a bombastic start straight away. Walking through the streets of atmospherically lit Minrathous while people are being torn apart by demons around us, it couldn't be more atmospheric.
Such fantastic scenes occur again and again throughout the game, but patience is required after the great start. Once we have survived the first confrontation with Solas, we first have to put together our team, the eponymous Veil Watch. And here the momentum drops noticeably for a few hours.
This also makes the game's biggest point of criticism clear: the writing of the characters is initially unconvincing. Veilguard offers a total of seven companions, which consist of new faces in addition to the scout Harding, who is already known from Inquisition.
However, for a long time it is difficult to be interested in any of these characters. In the beginning, we hardly learn anything about them beyond their archetypes. For a long time, Bellara was simply stored in our minds as a lively, nerdy elf magician and Lucanis was simply the assassin with a dark side.
It doesn't help that we can't talk to them much at the beginning in the lighthouse, the game's hub area. We sorely missed conversations in which we learned more about the lives and views of the Companions for much of the game.
Often when we visit their room, they just share a sentence with us or have short conversations in which we choose answer options but are not allowed to ask our own questions.
The group conversations on the go are often not very dynamic because characters hardly clash with each other or challenge their worldviews. Everyone is simply too nice and enlightened to have interesting conversations - a small exception here are Davrin and Lucanis, who are quite angry at each other because of their different professions.
Entertaining arguments à la Alistair and Morrigan in Origins or Varric and Cassandra, who were often at loggerheads in Inquisition, are rather rare here.
Rook himself also falls under this problem. We always have multiple answer options in conversations, but almost without exception our character is always nice and the options all feel pretty much the same.
The sarcasm isn't as biting as Hawke's and we couldn't really be mean either. Rook can hardly be shaped, which is a shame if you have played other BioWare games or, most recently, Baldur's Gate 3.
That may sound a bit daunting and is definitely the biggest negative point in the first few hours of play, which is fortunately offset by the fantastic gameplay (more on that in a moment).
However, our criticism only applies up to a certain point in the story.From that moment on, it was as if a switch had been flipped: suddenly one memorable moment trumped the next.
More than once the story has completely taken us off our feet with an unexpected but at the same time positive surprise - you'll notice we're being very vague here, but we definitely don't want to give you any spoilers so that you can experience these surprise moments for yourself.
And the stories of the companions finally start rolling from this point on. Each of them gets a whole series of missions, all of which end in a fantastic finale that could just as easily have been the end of a game of its own.
Emmerich, for example, finally lets us experience the necromancer culture of Navarre up close after it was only mentioned in passing for three games - and does so in a surprisingly sensitive and entertaining way on a topic as heavy as death. And thanks to Davrin, we also learn something new about the Gray Wardens, who were already the focus of Origins, through their relationship with griffins.
In the personal quests we not only finally get to know and love the companions, but are also faced with some difficult decisions - which made us shed a tear more than once. The successful German dubbing also manages to convey the right emotions wonderfully.
So if you can cope with Veilguard's weaknesses for the first 15 to 20 (!) hours, depending on your playing style, or would rather just get into the gameplay and the world first instead of constantly having conversations, you'll get more than enough in the remaining 40 hours until the end just compensated.
Gendering in the German language edition
Gendered language is used in the German language output. We at GamePro generally see this as a positive decision, but the implementation is not always entirely successful.
For non-binary people, the pronouns hen/hem (in English: they) are used and an “-e” is added to the title, such as Stadthaltere. However, the game explains this procedure far too late, so it can be quite confusing at first when a character is referred to by pronouns that some may have never heard of.
A quick note at the beginning about how the game implements gender-neutral pronouns would definitely have been helpful.
In addition, the grammar is not always consistent. Sometimes the gender asterisk is used in texts, then the colon is used again (e.g. for fighters). There are also occasional translation errors with the pronouns, when “xie” is spoken but the subtitles say “hen”. Overall, this is a small stumbling block in an otherwise very successful localization, which is why it has no influence on our rating.
Decisions are not only important for the companions, but also extend throughout the entire game. Of course, this concerns big, hard decisions where there is no classic right choice and which have an impact on the rest of the process.
Not only can this determine which characters end up living or dying, but it even affects gameplay. For example, if we make a choice that harms a companion, he may no longer want to heal us, while his attack abilities become stronger.
But even the small decisions can sometimes have an unexpected impact many hours of play later. For example, if we don't save a corrupt mayor at the beginning, we can accidentally meet him 20 hours later as a corrupt monstrosity in the world - and because he remembers our decision, he naturally wants to take revenge.
Little moments like this occur again and again in the game and they make it clear that every decision we make - or don't make - can shape our very personal gaming experience. There's a real BioWare feeling again!
The game does a wonderful job of linking even side missions to the story. Whether we have diligently helped the Shadow Dragon faction also has an impact on how well they can support us in the end.
Since many side tasks also have to do with the companions, this provides an additional incentive. For example, if we save Veiljumpers in the Arlathan Forest, it also strengthens our bond with Bellara. There are a few quests in the style of “go there, kill monster XY”, but they are pleasantly limited.
