Games @lemmy.world simple @lemm.ee 1mo ago

Dragon Age: The Veilguard | Review Thread

Game Information

Game Title: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Platforms:

PC (Oct 31, 2024)
Xbox Series X/S (Oct 31, 2024)
PlayStation 5 (Oct 31, 2024)

Trailers:

Developer: BioWare

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 84 average - 83% recommended - 22 reviews

Critic Reviews

But Why Tho? - Eddie De Santiago - 10 / 10

Dragon Age The Veilguard is a massive new world full of thoughtful stories, epic battles, and beautiful visuals to accompany them. This round of companions is among the most interesting, thoughtful, and downright charismatic, and adventuring with them made for an unforgettable journey.

CGMagazine - Dayna Eileen - 10 / 10

From style to story and everything in between, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is everything I wanted from this entry in the Dragon Age universe.

COGconnected - Mark Steighner - 90 / 100

Polished and confident, Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels like a return to form for the developer. Dragon Age: The Veilguard gives us a beautiful world to experience, interesting allies to explore it with, and action that grows increasingly more nuanced throughout.

Checkpoint Gaming - Luke Mitchell - 10 / 10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a triumphant return to form for one of gaming's most loved developers. It's an epic and grandiose RPG adventure, interwoven with intimate, powerful stories about its cast of endearing and quirky companions. It has a truly stunning world to explore, with hidden secrets, alluring side quests and a literal treasure trove of lore to comb through. Its tight, in-depth combat systems and breadth of accessibility options deliver a highly personalised experience. But beyond the adventure itself, it's another shining testament to diversity and inclusivity, polished to near perfection in its presentation. Put simply, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is Dragon Age at its most captivating, a truly generational adventure that is as heartfelt as it is thrilling.

Cinelinx - Becky O'Brien - 5 / 5

After ten long years, the world of Dragon Age is back in the best way possible. Longtime fans of the Dragon Age series will find so much to love in Dragon Age: The Veilguard as this is the best visit to the land of Thedas yet. An easy contender for Game of The Year, highly recommended for playing as soon as possible.

Dexerto - Ethan Dean - 4 / 5

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a stellar achievement that ends a decade-long dry spell. It tells one of the best stories in the series fuelled by some of its most memorable characters. It’s not a flawless journey but the minor imperfections don’t detract from one of 2024’s best RPGs.

Digital Trends - Tomas Franzese - 3.5 / 5

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a return to form for this once-lauded RPG studio that should satiate Dragon Age fans quite well after a decade-long wait. But returning to form and perfecting form are not the same thing. BioWare has plenty of room to regrow as it gets back on track making the kinds of games RPG fans want them to create.

Digitec Magazine - Philipp Rüegg - German - 4 / 5

With “Dragon Age: The Veilguard”, Bioware delivers a gripping action role-playing game that is aimed at the masses but doesn't forget its roots.

DualShockers - Callum Marshall - 8.5 / 10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a compelling new entry in the series, taking the franchise in a new direction with more RPG-lite ideals. This decision will alienate Die Hard fans but will undoubtedly win favor with new fans willing to embrace the series.

GRYOnline.pl - Anna Garas - Polish - 7 / 10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the best game BioWare has made since Mass Effect 3. It is crafted much better in terms of story and gameplay than DA: Inquisition (I find this game mediorce at best), and is superior to Andromeda in every way. But the things that used to dazzle me right now are „only” good. There's more to accomplish in the genre than that.

Game Rant - Joshua Duckworth - 10 / 10

After 100 hours and 3 playthroughs of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I feel justified in my ten-year wait and satisfied by the results.

Gamepressure - Krzysztof Lewandowski - 6 / 10

This isn’t the end of Dragon Age that I was expecting - in this respect, the game must be rated low. However, as an action RPG with flair and a beautiful fairy-tale world, it turns out to be decent, and sometimes even more than that.

Gamer Guides - Tom Hopkins - 92 / 100

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a phenomenal return to form for BioWare. The story is well-paced and the cast of characters are the trademark BioWare staple of fully-realised, but it’s in the newly action-oriented combat where things truly shine.

GamingTrend - Ron Burke - 85 / 100

The writing can be overwrought, written by committee, and occasionally forced, but it's also a major step forward for a team that needs the win. Dragon Age: The Veilguard brings us compelling characters, excellent combat, and a world worth saving.

Guardian - Malindy Hetfeld - 3 / 5

There is lots to do in this huge and beautiful fantasy world, but inconsistent writing and muted combat dull its blade

IGN - Leana Hafer - 9 / 10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard refreshes and reinvigorates a storied series that stumbled through its middle years, and leaves no doubt that it deserves its place in the RPG pantheon. The next Mass Effect is going to have a very tough act to follow, which is not something I ever imagined I'd be saying before I got swept away on this adventure.

Push Square - Robert Ramsey - 8 / 10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn't quite BioWare back to its absolute best, but it is the most cohesive and emotionally engaging RPG that the studio has delivered since Mass Effect 3. Its shift to crunchy action combat is an improvement over Inquisition's middle-of-the-road approach, and although the game feels a little light on meaningful player choice, the storytelling pulls no punches when it actually matters. This is a gorgeous and gripping adventure, backed by a cast of endearing heroes and deliciously devious villains.

Quest Daily - Julian Price - 9.5 / 10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a fantasy epic that showcases the best voice acting and overall polish of any game I’ve played this year.

SECTOR.sk - Táňa Matúšová - Slovak - 7 / 10

The latest chapter in the Dragon Age saga successfully combines the best of semi-open-world gameplay with a balanced and engaging combat system. While Dragon Age: The Veilguard falls short of previous installments in areas like side quests, story choices, and dialogue depth, it excels in combat quality, world design, and audiovisual presentation, delivering some of the most epic battles in the series. This game is a roller-coaster experience; at its peak, it entertained and amazed me, yet at times, its lack of depth dampened my enthusiasm.

Stevivor - Hamish Lindsay - 8.5 / 10

Dragon Age The Veilguard is the epitome of 'better than the sum of its. It’s been so long since I experienced this level of joy in a long-form RPG; I have a compulsion to keep playing and finish one more quest.

TechRaptor - Erren Van Duine - 9.5 / 10

Dragon Age: The Veilguard delivers an incredible experience built on fluid combat, deep lore and characters, and player choice. All of this is wrapped up in a polished package that is a must play for Dragon Age fans and RPG fans alike.

TheGamer - Stacey Henley - 4 / 5

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a Dragon Age game like no other, and that alone will put some people off. But it brings with it the traditions of excellent character writing, strong world building through narrative quests, and offers the most exciting combat the series has ever seen. There is a stronger version of The Veilguard in here, one with more Solas and companion quests that find a more natural ending, but the one we’ve got is still a worthy successor to Dragon Age: Inquisition, and is a much needed return to form for BioWare.

VGC - Jordan Middler - 3 / 5

Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels like BioWare playing it too safe. While it nails what it does best, like the excellent cast and interpersonal relationships, from a gameplay perspective it feels out of date.

XboxEra - Jesse Norris - 10 / 10

https://xboxera.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=98913&action=edit&calypsoify=1

61 comments

I'm still gonna wait and see, I think user reviews might turn out very mixed in contrast to the critics reviews. Not that I value user reviews all that much, but I'd like to see a bit more from the game before deciding anyway.

What really put me off from this game was the insanely boring dragon fight they recently showed in the PlayStation presentation, it dragged out so long too and nothing really interesting seemed to happen, it felt like a really outdated kind of boss battle, especially after games like God of War and Horizon. It just did not look that fun honestly, but perhaps story and other parts of the game are more entertaining.
- "professional" reviewers never tell how the game runs or any problems games always have these days when they're released. They're basically useless.
  
  I wait for a Digital Foundry tech review before making a purchase on AAA game these days. They tackle what’s quantifiable and add their thoughts on the game in general which is about as much as I need from a professional outlet.
  
  Part of the issue is that modern games are usually getting fixes right up to release. Pre-release reviews tend to focus on things that aren't likely to ever change significantly, like design and writing.
  
  It would be nice if they gave a summary of issues they saw with a disclaimer that they may get fixed instead of omitting that information entirely.
- Looks like Skill Up on YouTube did not recommend -- I typically trust his takes over review outlets
  
  Watching Skill Up's review now, and oof. That art style... that writing. Don't know who they made this game for, but it's definitely not me.
  
  weird. Mortismal Gaming rated it extremely highly. and even went so far as to say its his game of the year hands down.
  
  guess people should just form their own opinions.
I've found this in the wild, it's quite worrying, but not surprising, unfortunately.
- This is gonna turn into the gamer version of "this is extremely dangerous to our democracy" isn't it
  
  I think most of us are just tired of obvious paid for reviews with built in talking points like that. I'd like to be able to remotely trust anyone without watching a one hour unedited let's play video but that just means you'll accidentally buy Andromeda. I hope Veilguard is playable but signs are not good when bioware is "returning to form" x100
  
  That's exactly what came to my mind when I saw the image haha
- This comes from review guides, so yeah, they are literally sent by the company with a set of talking points and things to mention.
Oh hell no. Not until the first two patches are rolled out.
RIP Bioware.

EDIT 1 Also the new narrative just dropped. It's weird how all of them are saying the same thing.

EDIT 2 What the fuck is happening with the Qunari. Origins, 2, Inquisition, and finally Veilguard. This is just sad. In the first 3 games. They were cool, but now they look like shit cosplay.
- The qunari design is the weirdest thing to me. They Bioware spent so much effort solidifying who the Qunari are in 2 and had a great design to reflect that. Then in 3 I feel like they maintained and perhaps even improved the design, but kinda watered down the characterization of the culture. Perhaps I'm misremembering and the group of Qunari present in 2 are a more extreme sect than they are representative of the people as a whole. Now in Veilguard they seem to have really softened everything about the race. I'm just confused about the design direction which is disappointing because I really enjoy the qunari of DA2.
- It’s weird how all of them are saying the same thing.
  
  "Return to form" is just one of those reviewer-isms like "mixed bag" and "fans of the genre". You've probably seen the words "return to form" in dozens of trailers over the years that put the review quotes in their sizzle reels.
- I just finished watching Mugthief's video on the review conspiracy thing, it does make a lot of sense.
These are so reassuring, dear god I hope it's good. I really really feel like this is the make it or break it for Bioware. If Veilguard does well we could see a new era of Bioware games, refreshing Dragon Age and Mass Effect.

Or we'll see EA finally shutter it.
- A new era of bad games. Look at Pokemon, those games are almost always bad now, but because it's already popular it'll never improve or go away.
No idea why there are so many people who want this game to fail. Bioware has realistically made two bad games, Andromeda and Anthem, and for me Andromeda has the best gameplay in the entire series, not necessarily the best story and anthem is just not great. It's crazy the amount of bioware hate that exists that's completely unwarranted.
- Dragon Age 2 is a bad game
  
  DA2 has several bad qualities. I personally would not generalize it as a bad game. I am willing to concede that this is an unpopular opinion, however.
  
  I agree. Gameplay from 2 to origins is shameful.
  
  It's story is another matter. Have come around on that in recent years.
  
  You have your opinion but it's definitely in the vocal minority.
- It depends on how you frame it. I don't see it as "hate" as I don't hate Bioware, but objectively speaking, the work speaks for itself. Hyperbole such as disaster, catastrophe, etc are embellishments, but to say the game isn't bad or just so-so isn't a scathing criticism.
  
  Anthem was treated the way it was due to ME3 and the narrative choices, for better or worse. People wanted to tell off Casey Hudson, and the game suffered unfairly. Granted it wasn't a good game, it wasn't as terrible as it was made out to be either.
  
  Now on Andromeda, however, it was fairly criticized. The gameplay was fun and engaging, but the narrative and storytelling were given their fair treatment. That stuff was just bad, and the developer responses didn't help either. The pathetic rants amounted to "I put mah heart and souuuulll into it", and just because people worked really hard on something, doesn't mean it was a good thing. People worked really hard in the sewers of London to get rid of fatbergs, but in the end all they achieved was moving shit around, and that's more dignified than the trash we got in Andromeda's writing and character animations.
  
  Looking at the current marketing situation and the "Bioware hate" as you refer to it, I really think there's more EA hate at this point. EA is blatantly manipulating the review scores by means of review embargos and selectively cherry picking only favorable review outlets, and in some cases we are even spotting reused catchphrases that indicate signs of coaching by EA to say positive things about the game. They do this in light of the consumer sentiment about preorders "Not touching this or preordering, I want reviews first" is a common sentiment amongst their video comments telling their marketing engagement experts to use dirty tricks like review manipulation.
  
  I'd honestly love for Veilguard to be fantastic, but the layoffs and staff turnover tell me they didn't value their developers, didn't value the product, and don't value the art or anything really beyond making some flashy flim-flam with marketable gimmicks. The reviews I've read mention that the characters in the game must definitely know what Tiktok is, due to the cringy dialogue, and that's a review that gave it a favorable score.
  
  Just wait until the objective reviews hit and this game is widely panned. That will draw the line between "hate" and "oh, this is actually shitty", and make things especially clear.
  
  There have been more positive reviews so far than negative, and not a single post has shown any proof that EA is manipulating reviews and cherry picking. The only thing we've seen is one guy at fextralife throwing out conspiracy theories about how EA hates him, another guy who's apparently a racist and sexist asshat, and that's pretty much it. Mortismal has even stated he wasn't paid off or anything by EA and would be fined and his account deleted if he was and didn't disclose that fact, which he didn't.
  
  Bioware has made two bad games, Andromeda and Anthem, two. One is objectively not that bad, the other is a game in a genre they've never dipped their toes into, and the biggest issue is that those two releases were back to back, so that apparently means they've gone to shit now and everything else they've created means nothing. It's really sad how petty and ridiculous some people are over bioware. As for the EA hate that's been around forever, but God forbid someone say something positive about a bioware game.
  
  Do you have proof that EA is forcing reviewers to use catchphrases as you've said? I get it, we all have our hate boners, we all have our pet peeves, but damn son....the conspiracy theories and review embargo nonsense is just stupid at this point. Like you said let's just wait for the objective reviews but how about we simply don't write the game off because bioware apparently murdered our puppies.
EA's been manipulating the review scores, and can still only muster their current metacritic rating. I'm interested to see what the audience scores look like later this week.

Fextralife's take on EA review manipulation
General consensus seems positive. I'm excited to pick it up on release, it's been ages since Bioware did something good.
The Guardian review is more critical than others. I've never known they even review video games. Are they always like this?
- Their reviews are usually not that critical. That said, I don't think they're really a great source for gaming journalism anyways.
  
  If you want to see a very critical review of the game, check out Skill Up's review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF-Kd2BBpx8
Initial reviews seem remarkably positive given what we saw in the first gameplay reveal a few months ago. My impression at the time was that about half the voice actors sounded like they hadn't been given enough context about the scenario and some of the cutscenes had questionable direction, which were bad signs for a curated ten minute slice. I still think it's ultimately not for me—I don't really want action combat in my Dragon Age—but I'm glad people are enjoying it.
I always need a mix of user reviews and professional ones because Cyberpunk at launch there was a ton of capping for good it was lol.
I WANT TO BELIVEEEEEEE.

SOLAS YOU FUCK HOW DARE YOU END ON A CLIFFHANGER.

Apologies my inquisition lady elf character took control of the comment.

Really want it to be good. I don't care if it's biowares corpse telling the story just let it be worthwhile.

Hesitantly getting hopes up after seeing these reviews

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
There has been so much commotion around this game that things are genuinely confusing, the devs pumping it thinking they made something pretty good, people angry about which characters have tits and which ones don't, kind of samey looking reviews.

ignore all of that noise and just see what your favorite youtuber has to say about it. Mortismal gaming reviews RPGs thoroughly and was pretty positive on it, noting that the die hard Dragon age folks might not like how little of the lore carries over, but on it's own stands as a pretty good action RPG.
Please god let these positive reviews be paid off. I don't want this game succeed, it has nothing to do with the series - complete tonal shift, choices barely carry over and not being able to control companions is just.... I wish they made a new series, this isn't the Dragon age I know. Hope it fails
- God this, this right here is what I'm sick of in gaming. The negativity and hoping that things fail. Gaming has always been negative but ffs lately it's just been awful. There used to be a time where people would say "Eh, it's not for me", now it's "I hate the style and everything about it one star bandwagon folks let's all talk about how terrible and awful this game is and shit it down and out" And I say this as a dragon age fan.
  
  I'm willing to give it a fair shot - and I think real fans are willing to give the benefit of the doubt before shooting it down. Am I fan of the art style? No, not really. The gameplay? How could I I haven't played it yet. Controlling companions? Personally I never used it much anyway. I would never hope for a franchise I love to fail, that's such a weird thing to me. I'll see how it is when it releases, and I hope I have fun.
  
  I don't care if it's the dragon age I knew. I want it to be a fun game. I don't care if it's spongy, or the fighting is a little off, if they can get me to have fun - that's my metric. More importantly, I know others do care about those things. What I won't do is rage online or hope it fails because it doesn't cater to me.
  
  This was refreshing to read.
  
  I too am just tired of all the damn negativity.
  
  Thank you for the validation.
  
  Would it be better to become a darkspawn or die? Generally I'd prefer a series cater to the heart of the series instead of fuck off into an unwanted and disconnected direction.
  
  It's not just gaming - people had a similar reaction on the trailer for the Megamind animated TV series. I think it's a difference in mindset, some people don't care while others see it as disrespect to their beloved franchise.
  
  I’m willing to give it a fair shot
  
  Personally I'm going to trust what the studio behind the game chose to showcase in the official reveal trailer. They're selling the game as a lighthearted, cartoony, high fantasy romp where a band of constantly quipping misfits save the world, all without a hint of seriousness anywhere. I don't care whether the game is good, it's not Dragon Age.
  
  I am not hoping for a franchise I love to fail. What I am hoping for is that this imposter, which wears the series' skin purely for brand recognition, fails.
- You don't have to pay people to generate good reviews. You can also just only choose to give review keys to friendly media outlets you've already built a relationship and know will treat you uncritically.
- The paid reviews conspiracy stuff is still a thing?
  
  I am not aware of any conspiracy like that, It's just my personal hope.

61 comments