Dragon Age: The Veilguard

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.

There is plenty to like about Veilguard, but I sometimes had to dig deep to look past its flaws, from repetitive gameplay to a story that doesn’t know how to bring everything together. It’s a perfectly enjoyable RPG, then, but an underwhelming Dragon Age game.

All said, none of my complaints detract from the fact that The Veilguard is a mostly sound game that works when you're playing as a class that can take advantage of its combat. I haven't run into any glitches or game-breaking bugs.

What BioWare has managed to accomplish here, in the face of all the pressure it's faced since Dragon Age: Inquisition came out 10 years ago, is extraordinary. From head to toe, wing to wing, The Veilguard is exquisitely realised and full of sophistication across systems and storytelling.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard takes that ownership to new heights, gamifying the very concept and giving players control based on how they choose to interact with the game. From its combat to its companions, from its main quests to its faction quests, from its choices to its final missions, Dragon Age: The Veilguard puts everything into its players' hands, the fate of Thedas included.

Is this the game Dragon Age fans have waited a decade for? I have no idea. Maybe not. But for me, someone who couldn’t get through any of the other games, I often couldn’t wait to play more of The Veilguard. It could have used some editing, more gameplay complexity and maybe some sharper writing in parts, but it did many things well and I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit.

The Veilguard nails action combat and exploration and visual grandeur but in a series about defining a hero with morally ambiguous choices, the choices here are too easy to make. In time, The Veilguard will have its own hotly debated legacy within the series, but thank goodness it will at least have one.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an approachable, expansive action-oriented RPG and feels like a true end to whatever the franchise was before. The book's not finished, but a significant chapter has closed. While Dragon Age: The Veilguard is undoubtedly different in many ways from its predecessors and takes lessons learned from Mass Effect to heart, there's a lot to love – mechanically and narratively – about the new normal and what is hopefully a foundation for what's to come.