Dragon Age: The Veilguard started the summer off with a bang with a final name change, game trailer, gameplay reveal, Dev Q&A, and more! On the heels of this wave of information we are finally receiving on the fourth installment into the Dragon Age series, we’re putting everything we know so far in one place!

It has been a long time since anyone has received substantial information concerning Dragon Age, so their cult following has been essentially given a revival. As it is a longstanding and beloved series with incredibly intricate and deep lore, it is all over every social media platform I have. Fans are posting praises, critiques, lore, and theories. It truly is an amazing time to be a Dragon Age fan.

Dragon Age summer kicked off with a name change from Dragon Age Dreadwolf to Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The developers stated that this was to focus more on the player and their companions rather than The Dread Wolf. An unsurprising move, given that the last game was entitled Dragon Age: Inquisition. While the first two games do not follow this naming convention, I’m glad to see it make a return. I did not want my friends that I bothered to play the games in order to see “Dreadwolf” and already be clued in to what happens in Dragon Age: Inquisition and the “Trespasser” DLC.

The first content everyone was able to see was a game trailer! This game trailer obviously had a sole purpose of introducing us to the companions, which are as follows:

  • Scout Lace Harding! She is our head scout from the Inquisition and she is a dwarven archer rogue. I am personally looking forward to seeing her fleshed out as a full companion, I love that she is returning.
  • Neve Gallus. She is a mage detective in Tevinter, and a part of an organization known as the Shadow Dragons.
  • Lucanis Dellamorte. He is an Antivan Crow with a specialization in dispatching mages. He first appears in the “Tevinter Nights” novel. He is a rogue– appears to be dual-wield from the trailer.
  • Bellara. She is said to be a “veil jumper” in the trailer, and that is a faction that the player can choose to be a part of as well. She explores elven ruins, and she is a mage.
  • Emmrich Volkarin. He is a necromancer that raises the dead in the form of skeletons to fight for him. We’ve had a type of necromancy in Dragon Age: Inquisition, so it’ll be fun to see this new take on it. He is a mage.
  • Davrin. He is a Grey Warden. He’s known to be charming, and he has a pet griffon named Assan. (How’s that for “extinct,” Solas?) He is a warrior.
  • Taash. She is a Qunari said to be a part of the Lords of Fortune. She is a known dragon hunter. Super excited to have a female Qunari companion, as we’ve only had Sten and The Iron Bull so far. She is a warrior.

See the game trailer here:

The gameplay reveal was another wave of excitement, because famously, BioWare game trailers rarely look like the actual gameplay. They played about twenty minutes of the beginning of the game, and without spoiling too much there are a few things we know now about the game mechanics:

  • Ability trees are back, though this time similar to Mass Effect. You have three abilities per character to use in combat.
  • It is third person, as per usual.
  • Dialogue choices are back, but the humorous Hawke response icons are making a return specifically!
  • Maps are linear
  • You can interact with NPCs, as seen by the prompt in the beginning of the reveal
  • Cutscenes and gameplay are connected with seamless transitions
  • Updated art for enemies we have seen in past games
  • More fluid and quick-moving combat
  • Very heavy on choices
  • An interaction with Solas involving the Fade kickstarts the game
  • The atmospheric feel of the beginning of this game is in true BioWare fashion

Of course, I highly recommend checking out the reveal yourself to see. The environmental and atmospheric art are beautiful and cohesive.

See the gameplay reveal here:

There was also a Summer Fest first reveal. It confirmed a couple of logistics things for release and features that we will see in The Veilguard:

  • Fully offline single-player game, no microtransactions
  • No EA account linking (super excited about that, quicker launch times! And no buggy launcher to deal with)
  • You are able to play as a character from one of six factions:
    • Antivan Crows
    • Shadow Dragons
    • Grey Wardens
    • Veil Jumpers
    • Lords of Fortune
    • The Mourne Watch
  • Customizable Inquisitor
  • “Killer cameos” from past games…… I am nervous
  • Specializations are back! There are 3 for each discipline.
  • Party size of three instead of four, like past games
  • No direct control of your companions
  • There is a home base like we had in Dragon Age: Inquisition called The Lighthouse. It is essentially the fourth game’s version of Skyhold, or the Normandy from Mass Effect.
  • The character creator is described as the most in-depth creator that BioWare has put out with categories:
    • Lineage
    • Appearance
    • Class
    • Faction
    • Playstyle
  • Body sizes in the character creator!
  • Tarot cards in the beginning to choose the events of Inquisition
  • BioWare has teased that we may lose party members…

There was also a huge Discord Q&A with the developers, and we found out a lot of information, from the smallest details to the biggest portions of The Veilguard. There were even some funny answers in there, so I’ll also list the Q&A in list format!

  • Rook is what your character will be referred to as, and it is a nickname that you earn before the events of The Veilguard. Surnames are given according to faction, and you can choose your first name either by entering it or using their name generator.
  • Here and there, your Rook will be referred to by surname.
  • Your Rook is able to be non-binary/trans, and they can disclose and discuss that with party members by choice.
  • Lots of different hairstyle choices, with many different colors
  • Facial and body tattoo options
  • Lots of eye color options, including the option for heterochromia
  • Any faction/lineage/class combination, other than Dwarven mages of course
  • Dragon Age: The Veilguard is confirmed to happen 8 years after the “Trespasser” DLC, which would then be 10 years from Dragon Age: Inquisition
  • You will have the option to re-create your Inquisitor
  • There will be 5 difficulty presets plus a custom one. If I had to guess, I’m sure it’s similar to Dragon Age: Inquisition in their difficulty options: Casual, Normal, Hard, Nightmare, and Custom. They might add “easy” before normal or something like that, and they could also call “casual” “narrative” instead.
  • The HUD is said to be partially customizable, such as text size, health bars and when they show, and things like that.
  • We can jump and finally, we can sprint! 
  • The Dragon Age Keep is being phased out. The beginning of Dragon Age: The Veilguard will have a tarot card type of area where you choose the choices you made in the last game.
  • No Mabari as they are not popular in the area we’ll be playing in, unfortunately
  • You can pet and hug Assan the Griffon (Davrin’s animal companion featured in the game trailer)

Above are the highlights for what we know from the Discord Q&A, but it is a great time to be a Dragon Age fan currently, and Game Informer is releasing multiple articles with their first look at The Veilguard. I will refrain from putting most of it here, as a lot of fans expressed that it holds a lot of spoilers- not for people that have not played Inquisition, but for people who would like to play The Veilguard without knowing so much going into it. (That on top of the digital issue costing money, haha). The developers have been careful not to give away to much information so far, but Game Informer gave quite a bit away in their cover story. This is actually quite comforting; it means that BioWare knows that there is even more in store for us deeper into The Veilguard.

Game Informer did release another article about The Veilguard but it is mostly combat based, including screenshots of what we can expect to see in-game. BioWare’s UI designer really put in the work!

Credit to Game Informer:

This is all a lot of information and there’s even more coming out from the community manager running the Dragon Age accounts, as well as the project director for The Veilguard. I am wishing BioWare (and us!) an even more Dragon Age filled summer leading up to the release time frame of this coming Fall 2024.

It will be out on both PC and Console, and according to Michael Gamble (project director), there is “PC stuff planned that [they] can’t talk about yet” according to his X (formerly Twitter).

It is a Dragon Age summer, and I’m sure there’s much more in store!

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