3/5 ★ – jordybgood's review of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

A really bizzare mess. I don’t think it’s as deserving of the hate and backlash it’s getting, but I sure wondered what made BioWare decide on the things they did here. I’m a very casual fan when it comes to Dragon Age but would call myself a veteran when it comes to BioWare as a whole, and I will gladly say with my chest, this is NOT a bad game, however it’s very inconsistent. I appreciate BioWare taking a step back from Inquisition and Andromeda’s open world approach and going for a more linear gameplay design. Unfortunately there just isn’t enough momentum to keep you pushing for quests/explore outside the main story. The only way this really works is when it pulls a Mass Effect 2 and makes you feel motivated to do side missions as a way to change the outcome of your companions lives and just the overall finale. I won’t say this made me want to do ALL of the side quests lol, but I appreciate that there’s at least some urgency in adding that game design. I think if there was a shorter campaign and less companion quests, I would’ve felt more motivated to finish all of them. Mass Effect 2’s biggest flaw is also present here in that companion quests just don’t trigger unless you complete other side quests, but they all feel super repetitive and lack urgency for me. They boil down to: go find this boss, clear out this horde, climb this and that to reach that room. It’s just so wonky in that it feels like it’s fighting itself in what it wants to be. I know BioWare had gone back and forth on this game’s development/direction but this is easily one of the most uneven games they’ve ever made. Story wise the game clearly had so much potential. I like the inclusion of Inquisition’s characters ie Solas being the main antagonistic force. Any character interaction with him was my favorite in the whole game and I was very engaged by his role. The companions themselves just are a hit or miss. I personally enjoyed Neve, Lucanis, and Davrik, but everyone else left a lot to be desired for me. Rook as a primary protagonist I think works well enough only if you play them as a Marvel-esque character with the quippy humor lines and sometimes genuine sincerity. If you played them any other way I don’t see how they could be taken as seriously. I liked Veilguard better than Inqusiton and Andromeda but it absolutely feels like a major step back in many ways with questionable game design and pretty awful pacing. My only hope with the new Mass Effect is they go for a traditional visual design that feels more of a natural profession of the original trilogy, rather than a blatant departure from it’s predecessor games like Veilguard is for Dragon Age.