Discussion Dragon Age: Veilguard (Fall 2024)

[GodisanAtheist]

Well this seems to have come up out of nowhere (for me, anyhow)

Looks like the old Dreadwolf DA4 project has become Veilguard and is on the (relative) cusp of launching. The trailer above suggests a pretty big thematic shift for the series, although a number of people "in the know" say the trailer has a fortnight feel for purely marketing reasons and the gameplay itself keeps with the darker visual and thematic tone of the DA series.

We're apparently due a gameplay trailer in roughly a week that should clear things up.

I can only hope for the following:

- Please don't make our character a Mary Sue with the personality of cardboard. I want the power and status of the main character to feel earned, not handled to them on a silver platter, which was a major issue IMO for both Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda.

- Keep the game tight and focused, get rid of vast collectathon areas for fewer more tightly crafted areas with actual quests. Basically, just do with Witcher 3 did, but this time with Dragon Age 4.

- Keep the bad guys appropriately complex, ditch all this "demon infused crack made them crazy" nonsense from DA2 & 3.

- The bar for character creators is pretty high at this point, don't flub it like Andromeda did.

- Party looks acceptably fun and diverse, but please make sure they have some actual complexity and their own motivations. Looks like we're in the Tevinter Imperium for this game, which by lore standards is a super ****ed up place that is locked in a forever war with the Quinari, so it'd be nice to have characters reflect that culture instead of just being bland goody two shoes.

I've been waiting for this one for a long time. Bioware has survived some pretty catastrophic fails with Anthem and Andromeda, I'm hoping they've learned their lesson.

 

[RPD]

This is the game series from EA that gets my money. I always wished they had like an unlimited dive into the caves where dark spawn come from. I just loved how large and cavernous those areas felt in the 1st game, I think even the 3rd had some spots like that.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Alright, the gameplay reveal dropped a few days ago.

Looks like Dragon Age is going full ARPG...

 

[Coalfax]

The game hasa almost no trappings from its glory as DA:O. EA pandering to the kiddies who have no concept of time, patience or skill, just want the next shiny thing.

Its a pass unless something changes, which it wont. yay. thud.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Yeah I'm not thrilled with the direction DA has gone, each entry making the previous one look good by comparison.

The art direction and gameplay direction and even narrative direction in this seem to have completely lost the thread at this point. 10 years in dev hell going from a proper sequel to multiplayer to gaas game back to single player game and it really shows.

I'll undoubtedly pick it up when the complete edition is on sale for $10 a year from now, I'm still somewhat invested in the world, but not before then.

 

[RPD]

Should have pitched as a spin off game, in the same universe but something different while you know making a proper DA game.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I enjoyed Inquisition but that was ten years ago and I'm not very confident this is the same Bioware making this one, not after Anthem (which ended up every bit as bad as it looked in its reveal trailer). Not even going to bother watching trailers and will just wait for reviews.

 

[Racan]

I couldn’t get through Inquisition. I felt the gameplay was mind numbingly boring.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Gets Launch Date, New Trailer, and Official System Requirements

Bioware has officially announced the launch date for its upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which will be available on October 31st. Pre-orders for the game have opened up as well, and we got a new official release date trailer, as well as the full PC system requirements. Powered by the...

www.techpowerup.com

- Alright looks like info is coming out.

-10/31/24 release date.

-New trailer. The narrative seems interesting.

-Very reasonable PC specs.

While I don't buy ANYTHING brand new and full price anymore, and Veilguard will be no exception, I will be picking up the $10 Complete edition a year from now for sure.

I'm just too much of a sucker for Bioware narratives not to, and I'm a bit too invested on the overarching story of Dragon Age.

 

[ondma]

I will pick it up. Hopefully it will be decent. I am not expecting much more than that. "Bioware" just isn't the Bioware of old.
I am not wild about the party size being decreased to 3 and the combat becoming more action oriented. Most people might like the combat, but I am older and like to be able to pause the game and plan my moves.

 

[paperfist]

The game hasa almost no trappings from its glory as DA:O. EA pandering to the kiddies who have no concept of time, patience or skill, just want the next shiny thing.

Its a pass unless something changes, which it wont. yay. thud.

I need to go back and play that game now that I have an uber widescreen rig

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Lotta drama around this game on Reddit, it's pretty wild to see the whiplash.

- Quinari characters look too smooth and pretty. All anyone wanted was to look like the Arishok from DA2.

- Gameplay for mages looks pretty stale.

- The only choices coming into this game are some basic choices about your Inquisitor from DAI. Who they romanced, was the Inquisition disbanded, and do they want to kill or save Solas. Looks like Bioware is trying to start from a blank slate and get rid of all the quantum alive/dead characters and decisions with this game.

-Having recently gone back and played DA2 and Inquisition, there are a lot of story beats in Veilguard that have been coming for a long time. Bioware clearly had an overarching narrative planned for this series for a while.

 

[MoragaBlue]

I had played the original Dragon Age Origins. It was ok. I enjoyed it, especially with some amor pieces from the mod community. If I recall, I played a Blood Mage?

I skipped DA2 Inquisition, assuming they'd dumb it down for the console market. In those days, the spread between PC & console performance was wide enough where I avoided games toned down to fit the consoles. Even now, I have no interest in playing Inquisition.

As to Veilguard, I'd only try if gamers I trust, or whose play styles are similar to mine, highly recommend it, otherwise as with Inquisition, it's a hard pass.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Reviews

Unite the Veilguard and defy the gods in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, an immersive single-player RPG where you become the leader others believe in. When a pair of corrupt ancient gods break free from centuries of darkness, the vibrant land of Thedas needs someone they can count on. Rise as Rook...

www.metacritic.com

The reviews are in and they're... all over the damn place?

Everything from "this is perfection" to "I cannot possibly be more disappointed".

The fandom on Reddit is all over the place.

Never seen a launch like this before, but love it or hate it, no one seems apathetic about it, for sure.

 

[Tup3x]

I'll skip. It's pretty obvious what is the direction they took and I don't like it. On top of that it looks it's crashing constantly. Things went south after ME2.

 

[CakeMonster]

Trying it now, the graphics are quite stylized, but it works much better than feared in practice. The assets and the lighting looks and feels very DA to me. And while heavy on effects (which some might think too much), it looks quite stunning. The reflections in water with RT are some of the best I've seen. DLSS unfortunately has forced sharpening, but at 4K that is a bit less visible. I'm still in what I feel is a tutorial/intro for new players so I can't say too much about the dialogue style, but yeah there's a few of those quips that DA2 had if you chose to express that personality. I'm having a lot of fun so far though.

Oh, and Digital Foundry did a thourough look at the PC settings.

 

[ondma]

I bought the game, and have played a few hours. It is OK at best for me. I love the classic, turn based RPGs, so DAV is not really my kind of game. It is actually more of a fast paced beat em up disguised as an RPG, although there is a token attempt to make combat pausable, but it is very thin compared to BG3 or even the original Dragon Age. Customization options are very limited, your party is limited to 3 (why???), and I dont like the inventory/interface system at all. I dont regret buying it; it is a game you can sit down to and mindlessly play for a while. Overall, it seems a further step down from Inquisition though, much less BG3 or the classic Bioware RPGs of old. Overall, I probably would rate it about 65/100. My first reaction to the game was: "It took Bioware 10 years to make this???"

BTW, the early feel of the game is eerily like Jade Empire, which I started but never managed to complete. A lot of people on line are incensed by the "woke" aspects of the game, but that does not bother me one way or the other. It just simply lacks the depth of character, gameplay, and story of a AAA RPG, IMO. It simply cant hold a candle to BG3.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I bought the game, and have played a few hours. It is OK at best for me. I love the classic, turn based RPGs, so DAV is not really my kind of game. It is actually more of a fast paced beat em up disguised as an RPG, although there is a token attempt to make combat pausable, but it is very thin compared to BG3 or even the original Dragon Age. Customization options are very limited, your party is limited to 3 (why???), and I dont like the inventory/interface system at all. I dont regret buying it; it is a game you can sit down to and mindlessly play for a while. Overall, it seems a further step down from Inquisition though, much less BG3 or the classic Bioware RPGs of old. Overall, I probably would rate it about 65/100. My first reaction to the game was: "It took Bioware 10 years to make this???"

BTW, the early feel of the game is eerily like Jade Empire, which I started but never managed to complete. A lot of people on line are incensed by the "woke" aspects of the game, but that does not bother me one way or the other. It just simply lacks the depth of character, gameplay, and story of a AAA RPG, IMO. It simply cant hold a candle to BG3.

- In "fairness" it probably took Bioware more like 2-3 years to make the game we've seen today. My understanding is the game has started, stopped, completely scrapped and restarted development a few times over the last 10 years.

As much as people like to hate on EA, I don't think it's unfair to say Bioware has a massive internal management problem when their games one after another have such tortured dev cycles.

 

[ondma]

- In "fairness" it probably took Bioware more like 2-3 years to make the game we've seen today. My understanding is the game has started, stopped, completely scrapped and restarted development a few times over the last 10 years.

As much as people like to hate on EA, I don't think it's unfair to say Bioware has a massive internal management problem when their games one after another have such tortured dev cycles.

I am trying to recall, I think there was some sort of licensing issue or something as well, but I have really lowered my opinion of Bioware since they turned KOTOR (one of my top 5 favorite games of all time) into an MMO. They thought they could make another cash cow like WOW, and sold out their core competency.