While I count the Dragon Age games among my most favorite RPGs of all time now, it wasn’t always like that. My first playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins was distracted, at best. I had a false start with Inquisition, and I held the second game in contempt for far longer than was warranted. While I was extremely excited for Veilguard, I was also extremely nervous. Would my history with Dragon Age repeat itself?

I’m still getting my footing in this new Dragon Age universe, having played about ten hours as of writing, but I have impressions, lots of them. But to keep things from going off the rails, I’m going to focus here on three major aspects of the game: characters (including creation), combat, and progression. Minor spoilers might pop up here and there, so skip this if you plan on playing. Going in, I’d say the less you know, the better. Veilguard might be a little off-center from a Dragon Age game, but it’s definitely a BioWare one.

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Characters

Veilguard has a top-notch character creator. It’s reminiscent of the one in Inquisition, in which you start with a preset and customize from there. Unsurprisingly, I spent my first session with the game just playing around in the creator. After lots of internal hemming and hawing, I settled on a dwarven warrior named Darrik. He’s awesome, and I love him. And if for some reason I didn’t love him at the start, players gain immediate access to the series’ famous “Mirror of Transformation.” No need to start all over if your nose looks out of place! Just head to the mirror and fix it post haste.

As for everyone who’s not the protagonist, “Rook,” I’m still getting used to the stylized look of, well…everything and everyone. The new character designs feel a little like a step back from Inquisition, but better overall facial expressions more than make up for that. It is jarring to hear familiar voices attached to new faces, though. I respect that such folks might look more like their voice actors now, and I will leave it at that.

What of that acting? I didn’t expect to become so immediately enthralled by my companions outside of Varric, but here we are, simply enthralled. From kooky to brooding to independent, I adore them all so far, and I still have several folks yet to meet. NPCs have plenty going from them, too. Solas’s actions upended their world, and most of them aren’t taking that lightly.

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Combat

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear that someone at BioWare was a fan of the Batman: Arkham games, because Veilguard is shaded by Arkham’s approach to combat. Don’t get me wrong, the combat here is still very BioWare-esque, with some mechanics pulled straight of out Mass Effect (less so from the actual Dragon Age series, interestingly). But with the additions of Rook being able to “sense” enemy actions and finishing moves, well…it makes for quite the satisfying recipe of BioWare with a dash of Arkham.

It can’t be overstated just how much better combat is in this game over any other Dragon Age game, at least. Battles are exciting, paced well, and aren’t overly complicated. Unleashing devastating combos with and between companions is so much fun, though doing so takes a little practice, and not everyone works together in the same way. But that only add to the fact that no two battles play out the same. Even silly little mobs are joys to take down because players have so many options at their fingertips.

Speaking only to the warrior class, I will admit that I expected it to be a little dull, what with the series’ lackluster efforts with the class before. In reality, it is anything but dull. Brought over from Origins and DAII is being able to wield either a sword and shield or a two-handed weapon with no cost or change to abilities. A sword is quicker, a maul is more powerful; whichever you choose is up to you, but both options remain in play at all times. I’ve found my groove with two-handed weapons, but it’s nice to be able to keep a sword handy just in case.

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Progression

Going into Veilguard, I knew that I might not enjoy its skill trees. And…I don’t. Nope, don’t like them at all. And my dislike of them extends to the fact that I have navigate smaller ones for my companions. There’s no option to auto-level them, at least not one that I’ve discovered. Personal bellyaching out of the way, the trees available to Rook work just fine, and it offers quite a lot of choice as far as abilities go. It also looks like class specializations will be available when Rook reaches a certain level, which is neat.

Extending my dislike of micromanagement in games, gear leveling is unpleasant. That could be because don’t fully understand how it works yet, but I feel like the game will be nearly over by the time I become comfortable with it. There’s a crafting system that allows for players to individually upgrade Rook’s and the teams’s gear, but you can also find upgraded gear while exploring, doing quests, etc. I guess that’s not all that different from gear progression in a lot of RPGs, but it’s the crafting system that feels a little superfluous. (Thankfully, Rook has infinite bag space for hoarding crafting stuff. Inquisition had a crafting/upgrading system too, which I barely utilized. I suspect the same will hold true in Veilguard.)

With leveling, does Rook get stronger? I can’t actually tell. My Rook is currently level 14, which right now appears to be just a number attached skill tree. His health bar hasn’t gotten any longer, and I’ve not seen an option to hold more health potions. His companions, meanwhile, sit somewhere between leveled 1 and 3. I suspect I should be leveling up their gear more frequently than I am. Then again, I am busy, y’know, saving the world and all, so hopefully they’ll forgive me. (I take it my companions can “die” during battle, though I’ve not seen it in action. So far only Rook has had that honor, a lot. I have pretty bad reflexes unfortunately for him.)

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With about ten hours of Veilguard under my belt, despite a few gripes, I can already see myself putting in a hundred more. It’s that good. And I’ve barely scratched the surface of its portion of Thedas, not to mention all the game has to offer. (It has a photo mode! You can pet animals! It has fully customizable game settings! It has appearance options!) Oh, I had my doubts going in, especially where the story is concerned and about the conspicuous absence of the Inquisitor in BioWare’s gameplay trailer that featured a portion of Veilguard’s opening. Now that I’ve played through the entire opening and then some…well…I still hold mixed feelings about how everything started. However, I’ve become quite engrossed in solving certain problems that Solas has caused, so there’s no stopping this ride now.

Video and all images were captured by author during Xbox Series S gameplay of Dragon Age: The Veilguard (© BioWare).