BioWare put out a 10-minute showcase video breaking down Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s action-based combat. Most of what we’ve seen of the RPG thus far has been in the early game, so we still didn’t have a strong grasp of what high-level encounters look like. There have been a lot of questions surrounding the sequel, as we’d been hearing the studio talk a fair bit about how some long-held mechanics for the series, such as controlling your party members and having access to all your abilities, wouldn’t be returning in The Veilguard. So now’s the time to see what those things were replaced with in this more action-focused RPG. If you don’t have time to watch the full breakdown, here are some of the big takeaways.
A lot of The Veilguard’s systems seem to draw heavily from Mass Effect, and that includes a spin on Andromeda’s ability loadouts. Since you can’t access all your abilities on a wheel like you used to, The Veilguard has you decide on what attacks you’ll have at your disposal on a given quest and assign them. The showcase had a warrior version of protagonist Rook kitted out with a “This Is Sparta”-style kick, a grappling spear used to draw enemies in close, and a shield-like aura to protect her from damage. They definitely seem to be going for a tanky, brawler build, and picking the abilities best for whatever approach you’re going for will be key to defining your playstyle.
Also in the loadout is an Ultimate ability called Warden’s Fire, which rains down an area-of-effect attack on enemies. It sounds like this might be exclusive to Grey Warden Rooks, one of the origins you can select for your hero in the character creator at the beginning of the game.
Runes are used to augment equipment in the Dragon Age games, and they’ll be making their return in The Veilguard. The Warrior showcase shows the player equipping runes that are effective for crowd control, such as one that weakens enemies within a six-meter radius of Rook. The synergy between your class, ability loadout, and your runes will be key to making sure you have an effective build.
Next up we got a look at the skill tree, which includes stat buffs, abilities, and specialization branches. The showcase highlights the Champion specialization, which gives a Warrior defense-driven abilities, so it’s meant to be a frontline tank. This is further underlined by acquiring Heavy Armor Mastery in the skill tree to allow Rook to wear the most powerful armor sets in the game.
The sequence BioWare shows here includes Darkspawn enemies, who are susceptible to fire damage, but they don’t bring a mage character like Neve to cast fireballs. We instead see Rook equipping burn-based equipment to add a fiery element to their physical attacks. Given you can only have two party members with you in The Veilguard, it’s nice to know you won’t have to default to having one of every class to handle certain situations, as that would be more limiting.
Here’s our first look at the party selection screen, which uses Dragon Age: Inquisition’s gorgeous tarot card-style art, but also has a Mass Effect: Andromeda-style render of the characters. The trailer includes the Grey Warden Warrior Davrin and the Antivan Crows Rogue Lucanis, who I’m leaning towards for my own party when I play The Veilguard because I also plan to make them fight for my love and affection.
When we saw The Veilguard at Summer Game Fest in June, one thing I noticed about the action-oriented combat is that Rook seems to have a Batman: Arkham or Marvel’s Spider-Man-style alert above their head when an enemy attack is incoming. Initially, I wondered if this might be exclusive to the Rogue class, as the dual-dagger playstyle is meant to be nimble and quick on their feet. But it looks like this also applies to the Warrior class.
The Veilguard seems to prioritize fast-paced action, so even if the Warrior class is meant to stand their ground and control the crowd, we can see Rook rolling, parrying, and getting in and out of a scrap with relative ease as a shield-wielding Warrior with passive abilities like having a fire element added to their weapons by parrying incoming attacks. So the class seems like it’s been fine-tuned for the action pivot.
Yes, you can use the kick ability to reenact that one scene from 300. Rook is shown kicking a Darkspawn off the side of a cliff, and it looks pretty damn satisfying to pull off if the circumstances are right.
Davrin and Lucanis are shown having three abilities just as Rook does through the Ability Wheel, and pulling up this menu during fights has a fair bit of intel to help you in a fight. Combo opportunities between Rook and their companions are labeled, enemy vulnerabilities and resistances are laid out, and you can command your party to use either specific abilities or just direct their attacks toward a targeted foe.
As you and your enemies tussle in The Veilguard, you’ll notice they have a stagger bar above their life bar. Focusing on an enemy and hitting them with a barrage of attacks will put them into a staggered state once this bar fills, which will open them up to greater damage or a takedown finishing move. This can be increased by inflicting status effects like the Overwhelmed debuff via Davrin’s Heroic Strike attack.
If you’ve got a shield-based build, you can throw your metal frisbee like Captain America. That’s pretty cool, in my personal opinion. This Warrior Rook had spec’d their build to include the Shield Volley passive ability, which allows it to ricochet off multiple enemies. If you don’t think that’s the tightest shit, I can’t help you.
I don’t know if we can pet Davrin’s griffon friend Assan yet, but if the Grey Warden is in your party, he has an ability called Death From Above, which calls down the creature to attack enemies from a distance. That shit rules, and I’m feeling like Davrin having a pet is already endearing me to him before the game is even out, which is an unfair advantage in this love triangle I’m thinking about weaving through my playthrough. Lucanis, get a pet. Even the odds.
Previous Dragon Age games have had ability combos that allowed players to use abilities to set up devastating combos, but The Veilguard seems to codify it a bit further by baking primers and detonators into its systems. The example shown in the trailer is using a Crystallize rune to encase a group of enemies in ice, then having Lucanis follow it up with an area-of-effect ability called Eviscerate. The Ability Wheel highlights this as well, so it won’t always be a matter of trial and error to see if attacks can work together.
We can see Rook pinging between enemies while pausing the action from the Ability Wheel screen, so it looks like it might not be possible for enemies to hide from you thanks to awkward positioning or the like. This isn’t a cover-based shooter like Mass Effect, so this seems like a decent enough middle ground between the action-based pivot and the tactical origins of the series.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches on October 31. While we won’t get to play it for a little bit longer, BioWare is putting out a drip feed of story content through a weekly audio drama that will spotlight all the companions.
