Initial Impressions on Dragon Age: The Veilguard

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It’s been a little while since I’ve written down my impressions of a game. It’s been a little never that I’ve ever written down my initial impressions of a BioWare game. Thinking back, I think the last one that I played all the way through was Andromeda. Which was a good game, despite the meandering open world that took away from the experience. But, now we’re back, with the conclusion (maybe?) of the Inquisition timeline, and everything is purple, and very shiny. These are my thoughts …

Back in the day, way back, only a couple years after the iPhone was released, and after Mass Effect was released, I played my first BioWare game. That’s right, I didn’t play Mass Effect 1 until after I beat Dragon Age: Origins. In 2009. This was a dicey period in my life, when I was living in numerous places that I moved from every three years. But the one thing that didn’t change, was that I was constantly gaming.

But anyway, fast forward to now, 2024, and it’s been legitimately ten years since I’ve beaten Inquisition. Hardly remember a thing I did in that game aside from romancing Sera on my elven mage, which you can see in the “scrap” page under my links within the hide-away link panel on this site. When I say these are my initial impressions, I mean, I played the game for 6.9 hours, and felt I had enough to go on to write something.

Right from the jump, I’m in character creation and taking my time, and the game suddenly slows to a slog, and eventually locks up. This caused me to have to restart my PC. I load up the game again in order to continue, and I notice some random slowdown here and there, but I force my way through and make it into the initial start of the game. You know, that opening piece BioWare showcased months and months ago. Cut scenes started locking up, and the same freezing was happening, so I took the graphic settings down from high, to medium, and this seemed to help greatly.

Note: I’m on Debian using the Gnome desktop environment under Wayland, if that’s anything to go by. So, yes, I’m using Steam’s Proton layer in order to run this game.

Since, at the end of character creation, BioWare has you basically … recreate your Inquisitor, and asks you a couple of very basic questions about your choices in the previous game, I’m all set and assuming my Inquisitor is about to show up.

No.

6.9 hours in, and I have not seen my Inquisitor even once, yet. This seems strange to me, because my Inquisitor was one of the people setting off to find Solas. And then we start Veilguard with just Varric, and some brand new people? Varric is the one who has managed to track Solas down, and me, with my fresh face, and some other people (okay, Harding isn’t a brand new face, but …) and we’re running up on him.

Where is the Inquisitor?

Where’s Hawke? Where the hell is my Grey Warden? And what are the consequences of my having fed the prisoner in Dragon Age: Origins?

** SPOILERS AHEAD **

Morrigan returns, albeit briefly, so far, and it’s looking like, since she divulged all the information she could about your grey warden in the previous game, any thoughts on that subject this time around may not ever be revisited.

I could be proven wrong on this, but I don’t expect to be.

** END SPOILERS **

Expectations aside, alright, let’s just play the game.

I push through the initial mission, then the second one, then the third one, then the fourth one, and I’m getting a little afraid that this game is just mission-to-mission gaming, and there’s no longer even any sense of exploration whatsoever.

You have a home-base, and places to speak to your team, so there’s that. At least that is some semblance of what Dragon Age once was. But it’s not until hours and hours into the game that you’re suddenly met with the world map, the many places you have to visit, the option to take side quests, and the ability to simply teleport somewhere, and explore.

Alright, so that aspect of Dragon Age is not dead, and is in fact alive and well. Kind of the way it was in Origins, funnily enough.

There was another time the game crashed, right around the fifth hour mark, and it was strange, because my videocard abruptly said “Nope” and then I was sent to my login screen? As if my PC did a stealth restart right then and there?

BioWare, you’ve got some patching to do, or something.

I’m enjoying it so far, though, at least. It’s a bit lighter on the atmosphere, the writing is … okay. It could use some updating. Like, the story is there, and there are gradual dripfeeds of previous content being given to you, but a lot of the writing leaves a little bit to be desired. But it’s at least fun.

Does it feel like Dragon Age?

That’s hard to say. It’s been so long since I’ve been immersed in the world, I hardly remember what it was like.

I remember the first time I played Origins. The concept of romancing characters in a game, completely alien to me.

Meeting Morrigan, finding the approval ratings. Trying to figure out how to make her like me the best, and then suddenly she was having my child.

And then there was Hawke, me wandering around this strange place, trying to figure out why I wasn’t allowed to continue my story of starting a family with Morrgian, and then slowly but surely getting used to the idea that BioWare didn’t want me to have that.

Years passed, and Inquisition came, and mentally, I was a completely different person. Morrigan was there with a few things to say about her apparent grey warden husband, father of her child, disappearing … somewhere.

Yeah, I have a long history with this franchise.

There was also a point that I actually expected to play the Inquisitor in Veilguard. I know all of the reasons, and have heard all of the points as to why it is the way it is right now, but to me, it still would have made sense to just continue that story.

Alas, BioWare says, “Nah.”

If we’re talking feeling disoriented, sprinting through the first six hours of the game trying to find some semblance of the past that I can connect my character to, and seeing some familiar faces and going “Oh shoot!” and just splattering every enemy in front of me with massive power, then … yes, absolutely. It feels like Dragon Age.

But where is my son.