#a tour of thedas

[kmackatie]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Act One, part one

[x]

[corvus-frugilegus]

I think at least early game Rook makes a point of taking Lucanis along with them fairly often. The transition from underwater prison to... The Fade with no sense of night and day and not quite real fade air is kind of moving from one state of unreality to another (albeit a kinder unreality). They suspect real air and real daylight are things he might appreciate.

Also he's got a lot going on and his coping mechanism of choice appears to be over working himself. While that is Perhaps Not Healthy, it is what he needs to do and keeping him cooped up at the lighthouse seems like it might be worse.

(And who is Rook to judge, over doing it at work has been getting them by for years)

[ndostairlyrium]

one of my favorite things of the reaching Skyhold montage is definitely Solas' stance/expression shifting from guide to puppeteer (so naturally!!) as quisi walks away

[acealistair]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard GameInformer Article Transcribed

I saw some people lamenting that they had no way to read the GameInformer article, and while MVP dalishious posted screenshots of the article here, I figured that might be a little difficult to read, plus people with screen readers can't read it of course. So I've gone ahead and transcribed it! Full thing below the cut!

As a note, I transcribed it without correcting any typos, capitalization errors, etc. that the article itself had (as much as it pained me, omg the author capitalizes so many things that shouldn't be and vice versa). There may be some typos on my part as I did this as quickly as I could, so apologies in advance for any you might encounter.

I have also created a plot-spoiler-free version of the article for those who would like to learn more about the mechanics of the game without learning more plot info than they want!

Throughout my research and preparation for a trip to BioWare’s Edmonton, Canada, office for this cover story, I kept returning to the idea that its next game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard (formerly subtitled Dreadwolf) is releasing at a critical moment for the storied developer. The previous installment, Dragon Age: Inquisition, hit PlayStation, Xbox, and PC a decade ago. It was the win BioWare needed, following the 2012 release of Mass Effect 3 with its highly controversial and (for many) disappointing ending. Inquisition launched two years later, in 2014, to rave reviews and, eventually, various Gameo the Year awards, almost as if a reminder of what the studio was capable of.

Now, in 2024, coincidentally, the next Dragon Age finds itself in a similar position. BioWare attempted a soft reboot of Mass Effect with Andromeda in 2017, largely seen as a letdown among the community, and saw its first live-service multiplayer attempt in 2019’s Anthem flounder in the tricky waters of the genre; it aimed for a No Man’s Sky-like turnaround with Anthem Next, but that rework was canceled in 2021. Like its predecessor, BioWare’s next Dragon Age installment is not only a new release in a beloved franchise, but is another launch with the pressure of BioWare’s prior misses; a game fans hope will remind them the old BioWare is still alive today.

“Having been in this industry for 25 years, you see hits and misses, and it’s all about building off of those hits and learning from those misses,” BioWare general manager Gary McKay, who’s been with the studio since January 2020, tells me.

As McKay gives me a tour of the office, I can’t help but notice how much Anthem is scattered around it. More than Mass Effect, more than Dragon Age, there’s a lot of Anthem - posters, real-life replicas of its various Javelins, wallpaper, and more. Recent BioWare news stories tell of leads and longtime studio veterans laid off and others departing voluntarily. Veilguard’s development practically began with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When I ask McKay about the tumultuousness of BioWare and how he, as the studio manager, makes the team feel safe in the product it’s developing, he says it’s about centering on the creative vision. “[When] we have that relentless pursuit for quality, and we have passion and people in the right roles, a lot of the other stuff you’re talking about just fades into the background.”

That’s a sentiment echoed throughout the team I speak to: Focus on what makes a BioWare game great and let Veilguard speak for itself. Though I had no expectations going in - it’s been 10 years since the last Drag Age, after all, and BioWare has been cagey about showing this game publicly - my expectations have been surpassed. This return to Thedas, the singular continent of the franchise, feels like both a warm welcome for returning fans and an impressive entry point for first-time players.

New Age, New Name

At the start of each interview, I address a dragon-sized elephant in the room with the game’s leads. What was Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is now Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Why?

“These games are reflections of the teams that make them, and as part of that, it means we learn a lot about what the heart and soul of the game really is as we’re developing it,” Veilguard game director Corinne Busche tells me. “We quickly learned and realized that the absolute beating heart of this game is these authentic, diverse companions. And when we took a step back, as we always do, we always check our decisions and make sure they still represent the game we’re trying to build.”

Dreadwolf no longer did that, but each member of BioWare I speak to tells me The Veilguard does. And while I was initially abrasive to the change - lore aside, Dreadwolf is simply a cool name - I warmed up to The Veilguard.

Solas, a Loki-esque trickster member of the Elven pantheon of gods known as the Dread Wolf, created the Veil long ago while attempting to free the elves from their slave-like status in Thedas. This Veil is a barrier between the magical Fade and Thedas, banishing Elven gods and removing Elven immortality from the world. But players didn’t know that in Inquisition, where he is introduced as a mage ally and companion. However, at the end of Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC, which sets the stage for Veilguard, we learn in a shocking twist that Solas wants to destroy the Veil and restore Elves to their former glory. However, doing so would bring chaos to Thedas, and those who call it home, the people who eventually become The Veilguard, want to stop him.

“There’s an analogy I like to use, which is, ‘If you want to carve an elephant out of marble, you just take a piece of marble and remove everything that doesn’t look like an elephant,’” Veilguard creative director John Epler says. “As we were building this game, it became really clear that it was less that we were trying to make The Veilguard and more like The Veilguard was taking shape as we built the game. Solas is still a central figure in it. He’s still a significant character. But really, the focus shifts to the team.

“[We] realized Dreadwolf suggests a title focused on a specific individual, whereas The Veilguard, much like Inquisition, focuses more on the team.”

Creating Your Rook

Veilguard’s character creator is staggeringly rich, with a dizzying number of customizable options. Busche tells me that inclusivity is at the heart of it, noting that she believes everyone can create someone who represents them on-screen.

There are four races to choose from when customizing Rook, the new playable lead - Elves, Qunari, Humans, and Dwarves - and hundreds of options to customize your character beyond that. You can select pronouns separately from gender and adjust physical characteristics like height, shoulder width, chest size, glute and bulge size, hip width, how bloodshot your eyes are, how crooked your nose is, and so much more. There must be hundreds of sliders to customize these body proportions and features like skin hue, tone, melanin, and just about anything else you might adjust on a character. Oh, and there’s nudity in Veilguard, too, which I learn firsthand while customizing my Rook.

“The technology has finally caught up to our ambition,” Dragon Age series art director Matt Rhodes tells me as we decide on my warrior-class Qunari’s backstory, which affects faction allegiance, in-game dialogue, and reputation standing - we choose the pirate-themed Lords of Fortune.

Notably, instead of a warrior class, we could have chosen mage or rogue. All three classes have unique specializations, bespoke skill trees, and special armors, too. And though our Rook is aligned with the Lords of Fortune faction, there are others to choose from including the Grey Wardens, Shadow Dragons, The Mourn Watch, and more. There is some flexibility in playstyle thanks to specializations, but your class largely determines the kind of actions you can perform in combat.

“Rook ascends because of competency, not because of a magical McGuffin,” BioWare core lead and Mass effect executive producer Michael Gamble tells me in contrast to Inquisition’s destiny-has-chosen-you-characterization.

“Rook is here because they choose to be, and that speaks to the kind of character that we’ve built.” Busche adds, “Someone needs to stop this, and Rook says, ‘I guess that’s me.’”

Beyond the on-paper greatness of this character creator, its customizability speaks to something repeated throughout my BioWare visit: Veilguard is a single-player, story-driven RPG. Or in other words, the type of game that made BioWare as storied as it is. McKay tells me the team explored a multiplayer concept early in development before scratching it to get back to BioWare basics. The final game will feature zero multiplayer and no microtransactions.

Happy to hear that, I pick our first and last name, then one of four voices, with a pitch shifter for each, too, and we’re off to Minrathous.

Exploring Tevinter For The First Time

Throughout the Dragon Age series, parts of Thedas are discussed by characters and referenced by lore material but left to the imagination of players as they can’t visit them. Veilguard immediately eschews this, setting its opening prologue mission in Minrathous, the capital of the  Tevinter Empire. Frankly, I’m blown away by how good it looks. It’s my first time seeing Veilguard in action and my first look at a Dragon Age game in nearly a decade. Time has treated this series well, and so has technology.

Epler, who’s coming up on 17 years at BioWare, acknowledges that the franchise has always been at the will of its engine. Dragon Age: Origins and II’s Eclipse Engine worked well for the time, but today, they show their age. Inquisition was BioWare’s first go at Ea’s proprietary Frostbite engine - mind you, an engine designed for first-person shooters and decidedly not multi-character RPGs - and the team struggled there, too. Epler and Busche agree Veilguard is the first RPG where BioWare feels fully in command of Frostbite and, more generally, its vision for this world.

We begin inside a bar. Rook and Varric are looking for Neve Gallus, a detective mage somewhere in Minrathous. The first thing players will do once Veilguard begins is select a dialogue option, something the team says speaks to their vision of a story-forward, choice-driven adventure. After a quick bar brawl cutscene that demonstrates Rook’s capabilities, there’s another dialogue choice, and different symbols here indicate the type of tone you can roll with. There’s a friendly, snarky, and rough-and-tough direct choice, and I later learn of a more romantically inclined “emotional” response. These are the replies that will build relationships with characters, romantic and platonic alike, but you’re welcome to ignore this option. However, your companions can romance each other, so giving someone the cold shoulder might nudge them into the warm embrace of another. We learn Neve is in Dumat Plaza and head into the heart of Minrathous.

Rhodes explains BioWare’s philosophy for designing this city harkens back to a quick dialogue from Inquisition’s Dorian Pavus. Upon entering Halamshiral’s Winter Palace, the largest venue in Dragon Age history at that point, Dorian notes that it’s cute, adorable even, alluding to his Tevinter heritage. If Dorian thinks the largest venue in Dragon Age history is cute and adorable, what must the place he’s from be like? “It’s like this,” Rhodes says as we enter Minrathous proper in-game.

Minrathous is huge, painted in magical insignia that looks like cyberpunk-inspired neon city signs and brimming with detail. Knowing it’s a city run by mages and built entirely upon magic, Rhodes says the team let its imagination run wild. The result is the most stunning and unique city in the series. Down a wide, winding pathway, there’s a pub with a dozen NPCs - Busche says BioWare used Veilguard’s character creator to make each in-world NPC except for specific characters like recruitable companions - and a smart use of verticality, scaling, and wayfinding to push us toward the main attraction: Solas, attempting to tear down the Veil.

All hell is breaking loose. Pride Demons are rampaging through the city. Considering Pride Demons were bosses in prior games, seeing them roaming freely in the prologue of Veilguard speaks to the stakes of this opener. Something I appreciate throughout our short journey through Minrathous to its center below is the cinematography at play. As a Qunari, my character stands tall, and Rhodes says the camera adjusts to ensure larger characters loom over those below. On the flip side, the camera adjusts for dwarves to demonstrate their smaller stature compared to those around them.

This, coupled with movie-liked movement through the city as BioWare showcases the chaos happening at the hands of Solas’ Veil-break ritual, creates a cinematic start that excited me, and I’m not even hands-on with the game.

Eventually, we reach Neve, who has angered some murderous blood mages, and rescue her from danger. Or rather, help… barely. Neve is quite capable, and her well-acted dialogue highlights that. Together, Varric, returning character Lace Harding, who is helping us stop Solas and is now a companion, Rook, and Neve defeat some demons. They then take on some Venatori Cultists seizing this chaotic opportunity to take over the city and other enemies before making it to Solas’ hideout. As we traverse deeper and deeper into this hideout, more of Solas’ murals appear on the walls, and things get more Elven. Rhodes says this is because you’re symbolically going back in time, as Minrathous is a city built by mages on the bones of what was originally the home of Elves.

At the heart of his hideout, we discover Solas’ personal Eluvian. This magical mirror-like structure allows the gang to teleport (and mechanically fast-travel) to Arlathan Forest, where Solas is secretly performing the ritual (while its effects pour out into Minrathous).

Here, we encounter a dozen or so demons, which BioWare has fully redesigned on the original premise of these monstrous creatures. Rhodes says they’re creatures of feeling and live and die off the emotions around them. As such, they are just a floating nervous system, push into this world from the Fade, rapidly assembled into bodies out of whatever scraps they find.

I won’t spoil the sequence of events here, but we stop Solas’ ritual and seemingly save the world… for now. Rook passes out moments later and wakes up in a dream-like landscape to the voice of none  other than Solas. He explains a few drops of Rook’s blood interacted with the ritual, connecting them to the Fade forever. He also says he was attempting to move the Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain, part of the Evanuris or Elven gods of ancient times, to a new prison because the one he had previously constructed was failing. Unfortunately, Solas is trapped in the Fade by our doing, and these gods are now free. It’s up to Rook to stop them; thus, the stage for our adventure is set.

The Veilguard Who’s Who

While we learned a lot about returning character but first-time companion Lace Harding, ice mage private detective Neve Gallus, and veil jumper Bellara Lutara, BioWare shared some additional details about other companions Rook will meet later in the game. Davrin is a charming Grey Warden who is also an excellent monster hunter; Emmrich is a member of Nevarra’s Mourn Watch and a necromancer with a skeleton assistant named Manfred; Lucanis is a pragmatic assassin whose bloodline descends from the criminal House of Crows organization; And Taash is a dragon hunter allied with the piratic Lords of Fortune. All seven of these characters adorn this Game Informer issue, with Bellara up front and center in the spotlight.

The Lighthouse

After their encounter with Solas, Rook wakes up with Harding and Neve in the lair of the Dread Wolf himself, a special magical realm in the Fade called the Lighthouse. It’s a towering structure centered amongst various floating islands. Epler says, much like Skyhold in Inquisition, the Lighthouse is where your team bonds, grows, and prepares for its adventures throughout the campaign. It also becomes more functional and homier as you do. Already, though, it’s a beautifully distraught headquarters for the Veilguard, although they aren’t quite referring to themselves as that just yet.

Because it was Solas’ home base of operations, it’s gaudy, with his fresco murals adorning various walls, greenery hanging from above, and hues of purple and touches of gold everywhere. Since it’s in the Fade, a realm of dreams that responds to your world state and emotion, the Lighthouse reflects the chaos and disrepair of the Thedas you were in moments ago. I see a clock symbol over a dialogue icon in the distance, which signals an optional dialogue option. We head there, talk to Neve, select a response to try our hand at flirting, and then head to the dining hall.

A plate, a fork and knife, and a drinking chalice are at the end of a massive table. Rhodes says this is both a funny (and sad) look at Solas’ isolated existence and an example of the detail BioWare’s art team has put into Veilguard. “It’s a case of letting you see the story,” he says. “It’s like when you go to a friend's house and see their bedroom for the first time; you get to learn more about them.” From the dining hall, we gather the not-quite-Veilguard in the library, which Busche says in the central area of the Lighthouse and where your party will often regroup and prepare for what’s next. The team decides it must reach the ritual site back in Arlathan Forest, and Busche says I’m missing unique dialogue options here because I’m Qunari; an Elf would have more to say about the Fade due to their connection to it. The same goes for my backstory earlier in Minrathous. If I had picked the Shadow Dragons background, Neve would have recognized me immediately, with unique dialogue.

With our next move decided, we head to Solas’ Eluvian to return to Arlathan Forest and the ritual site. However, it’s not fully functional without Solas, and while it returns us to Arlathan Forest, it’s not exactly where we want to go. A few moments later, we’re back in the Arlathan Forest, and just before a demon-infested suit of mechanized armor known as a Sentinel can attack, two new NPCs appear to save us: Strife and Irelin. Harding recognizes them, something Dragon Age comic readers might know about. They’re experts in ancient elven magic and part of the new Veil Jumpers faction. The ensuing cutscene, where we learn Strife and Irelin need help finding someone named Bellara Lutara, is long, with multiple dialogue options. That’s something I’m noticing with Veilguard, too - there’s a heavy emphasis on storytelling and dialogue, and it feels deep and meaty, like a good fantasy novel. BioWare doesn’t shy away from minutes-long cutscenes.

Busche says that’s intentional, too. “For Rook, [this story’s about] what does it meant to be a leader,” she says. “You’re defining their leadership style with your choices.” Knowing that Rook is the leader of the Veilguard, I’m excited to see how far this goes. From the sound of it, my team will react to my chosen leadership style in how my relationships play out. That’s demonstrated within the game’s dialogue and a special relationship meter on each companion’s character screen.

Redefining Combat Once More

Bellara is deep within Arlathan Forest, and following the prolgoue’s events, something is up here. Three rings of massive rocks fly through the air, protecting what appears to be a central fortress. Demon Sentinels plague the surrounding lands, and after loading up a new save, we’re in control of a human mage.

Following the trend of prior Dragon Age games, Veilguard has completed the series’ shift from tactical strategy to real-time action, but fret not: a tactical pause-and-play mechanic returns to satiate fans who remember the series’ origins (pun intended). Though I got a taste of combat in the prologue, Veilguard’s drastic departure from all that came before it is even more apparent here.

Busche says player complete every swing in real-time, with special care taken to animation swing-through and canceling. There's a dash, a parry, the ability to charge moves, and a completely revamped healing system that allows you to use potions at your discretion by hitting right on the d-pad. You can combo attacks and even “bookmark” combos with a quick dash, which means you can pause a combo’s status with a dash to safety and continue the rest of the combo afterward. It looks even cooler than it sounds.

Like any good action game, there is a handful of abilities to customize your kit. And, if you want to maintain that real-time action feel, you can use them on the fly, so long as you take cooldowns into effect. But Veilguard’s pause-and-play gameplay mechanic, similar to Inquisition’s without the floating camera view, lets you bring things to halt for a healthy but optional dose of strategy.

In this screen, which essentially pauses the camera and pulls up a flashy combat wheel that highlights you and your companions’ skills, you can choose abilities, queue them up, and strategize with synergies and combos, all while targeting specific enemies. Do what you need to here, let go of the combat wheel, and watch your selections play out. Busche says she uses the combat wheel to dole out her companions’ attacks and abilities while sticking to the real-time action for her player-controlled Rook. On the other hand, Epler says he almost exclusively uses the combat wheel to dish out every ability and combo.

Busche says each character will play the same, in that you execute light and heavy attacks with hte same buttons, use abilities with the same buttons, and interact with the combo wheel in the same way, regardless of which class you select. But a sword-and-shield warrior, like we used in the prolgoue, can hip-fire or aim their shield to throw it like Captain America, whereas our human mage uses that same button to throw out magical ranged attacks. The warrior can parry incoming attacks, which can stagger enemies. The rogue gets a larger parry window. Our mage, however, can’t parry at all. Instead, they throw up a shield that blocks incoming attacks automatically so long as you have the mana to sustain it.

“What I see from Veilguard is a game that finally bridges the gap,” former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah, who left BioWare in 2021 before joining the Veilguard team last year as a consultant, tells me. “Uncharitably, previous Dragon Age games got to the realm of ‘combat wasn’t too bad.’ In this game, the combat’s actually fun, but it does keep that thread that’s always been there. You have the focus on Rook, on your character, but still have that control and character coming into the combat experience from the other people in the party.”

“This is really the best Dragon Age game that I’ve ever played,” he adds, noting his bias. “This is the one where we get back to our roots of character-driven storytelling, have really fun combat, and aren’t making compromises.”

Watching Busche take down sentinels and legions of darkspawn on-screen, I can already sense Veilguard’s combat will likely end up my favorite in the series, although admittedly, as a fan of action games, I’m an easy sell here. It’s flashy, quick, and thanks to different types of health bars, like a greenish-blue one that represents barrier and is taken down most effectively with ranged attacks, a decent amount of strategy, even if you don’t use the pause-and-play combo wheel. Like the rest of the game, too, it’s gorgeous, with sprinkles, droplets, and splashes of magic in each attack our mage unleashes. Though I’m seeing the game run on a powerful PC, which is sure to be the best showcase of Veilguard, Epler tells me the game looks amazing on consoles - he’s been playing it on PlayStation 5 and enjoying it in both its fidelity and performance modes, but I’ll have to take his word for it.

Pressing Start

The start or pause screen is as important to a good RPG as the game outside the menus. Veilguard’s contains your map, journal, character sheets, skill tree, and a library for lore information. You can cross-compare equipment and equip new gear here for Rook and your companions, build weapon loadouts for quick change-ups mid-combat, and customize you and your party’s abilities and builds via an easy-to-understand skill tree. You won’t find minutiae here, “just real numbers,” Busche says. That means a new unlocked trait might increase damage by 25 percent against armor, but that’s as in-depth as the numbers get. Passive abilities unlock jump attacks and guarantee critical hit opportunities, while abilities add moves like a Wall of Fire to your arsenal (if you’re a mage). As you spec out this skill tree, which is 100 percent bespoke to each class, you’ll work closer to unlocking a specialization, of which there are three for each class, complete with a unique ultimate ability. Busche says BioWare’s philosophy here is “about changing the way you play, not statistical minutiae.”

Companion Customization

You can advance your bonds by helping companions on their own personal quests and by including them in your party for main quests. Every Relationship Level you rank up, shown on their character sheet, nets you a skill point to spend on them. Busche says the choices you make, what you say to companions, how you help them, and more all matter to their development as characters and party members. And with seven companions, there’s plenty to customize, from bespoke gear to abilities and more. Though each companion has access to five abilities, you can only take three into combat, so it’s important to strategize different combos and synergies within your party. Rhodes says beyond  this kind of customizable characterization, each companion has issues, problems, and personal quests to complete. “Bellara has her own story arc that runs parallel to and informs the story path you’re on,” Rhodes says.

In Entropy’s Grasp

As we progress through the forest and the current “In Entropy’s Grasp” mission, we finally find Bellara. She’s a veil jumper, the first companion you meet and recruit in-game (unlike Neve, who automatically joins), and the centerpiece of this issue’s cover image. Because our mage’s background is Veil Jumper, we get some unique dialogue. Bellara explains we’re all trapped in a Veil Bubble, and there’s no way out once you pass through it. Despite the dire situation, Bellara is bubbly, witty, and charming.

“When designing companions, they’re the load-bearing pillars for everything,” Rhodes says. “They’re the face of their faction, and in this case [with Bellara], their entire area of the world. She’s your window into Arlathan Forest.” Rhodes describes her as a sweetheart and nerd for ancient elven artifacts. As such ,she’s dressed more like an academic than a combat expert, although her special arm gauntlet is useful both for tinkering with her environment and taking down enemies.

Unlike Neve, who uses ice magic like our Rook and can slow down time with a special ability, Bellara specializes in electricity, and she can also use magic to heal you, something Busche says Dragon Age fans have been desperate to have in a game. Busche says if you don’t direct Neve and Bellara, they’re fully independent and will attack on their own. But synergizing your team will add to the fun and strategy of combat. Bellara’s electric magic is effective against Sentinels, which is great because we currently only have access to ice. However, without Bellara, we could also equip a rune that converts my ice magic, for a brief duration, into electricity to counter the Sentinels.

As we progress through Arlathan Forest, we encounter more and more darkspawn. Bellara mentions the darkspawn have never been this far before because the underground Deep Roads, where they usually escape from, aren’t nearby. However, with blighted Elven gods roaming the world, and thanks to Blight’s radiation-like spread, it’s a much bigger threat in Veilguard than in any Dragon Age before it.

I continue to soak in the visuals of Veilguard with Arlathan Forest’s elven ruins, dense greenery, and disgusting Blight tentacles and pustules; it’s perhaps the most impressive aspect of my time seeing the game, although everything else is making a strong impression, too. I am frustrated about having to watch the game rather than play it, to be honest. I’m in love with the art style, which is more high fantasy than anything in the series thus far and almost reminiscent of the whimsy of Fable, a welcome reprieve from the recent gritty Game of Thrones trend in fantasy games. Rhodes says that’s the result of the game’s newfound dose of magic.

“The use of magic has been an evolution as the series has gone on,” he says. “It’s something we’ve been planning for a while because Solas has been planning all this for a while. In the past, you could hint at cooler magical things in the corner because you couldn’t actually go there, but now we actually can, and it’s fun to showcase that.”

Busche, Epler, and Rhodes warn me that Arlathan Forest’s whimsy will starkly contrast to other areas. They promise some grim locations and even grimmer story moments because, without that contrast, everything falls flat. Busche likens it to a “thread of optimism” pulled through otherworldly chaos ravaging Thedas. For now, the spunky and effervescent Bellara is that thread.

As we progress deeper into the forest, Bellara spots a floating fortress and thinks the artifact needed to destroy the Veil Bubble is in there. To reach it, though, wem ust remove the floating rock rings, and Bellara’s unique ability, Tinker, can do just that by interacting with a piece of ancient elven technology nearby. Busche says Rook can acquire abilities like Tinker later to complete such tasks in instances where Bellara, for example, isn’t in the party.

Bellara must activate three of these in Arlathan Forest to reach the floating castle, and each one we activate brings forth a slew of sentinels, demons, and darkspawn to defeat. Busche does so with ease, showcasing high-level gameplay by adding three stacks of arcane build-up to create an Arcane Bomb on an enemy, which does devastating damage after being hit by a heavy attack. Now, she begins charging a heavy attack on her magical staff, then switches to magical daggers in a second loadout accessed with a quick tap of down on the d-pad to unleash some quick attacks, then back to the staff to charge it some more and unleash a heavy attack.

After a few more combat encounters, including one against a sentinel that’s “Frenzied,” which means it hits harder, moves faster, and has more health, we finally reach the center of the temple. Within is a particular artifact known as the Nadas Dirthalen, which Bellara says means “the inevitability of knowledge.” Before we can advance with it, a darkspawn Ogre boss attacks. It hits hard, has plenty of unblockable, red-coded attacks, and a massive shield we must take down first. However, it’s weak to fire, and our new fire staff is perfect for the situation.

After taking down this boss in a climactic arena fight, Bellara uses a special crystal to power the artifact and remove it from a pedestal, destroying the Veil Bubble. Then, the Nadas Dirthalen comes alive as an Archive Spirit, but because the crystal used to power it breaks, we learn little about this spirit before it disappears. Fortunately, Bellara thinks she can fix it - fixing broken stuff is kind of her thing, Epler says - so the group heads back to the Veil Jumper camp and, as interested as I am in learning what happens next, the demo ends. It’s clear that even after a few hours with the game’s opening, I’ve seen a nigh negligible amount of game; frustrating but equally as exciting.

Don’t Call It An Open World

Veilguard is not an open world, even if some of its explorable areas might fee like one. Gamble describes Veilguard’s Thedas as a hub-and-spoke design where “the needs of the story are served by the level design.” A version of Inquisition’s Crossroads, a network of teleporting Eluvians, returns, and it’s how players will traverse across northern Thedas. Instead of a connected open world, players will travel from Eluvian to Eluvian to different stretches of this part of the continent. This allows BioWare to go from places like Minrathous to tropical beaches to Arlathan Forest to grim and gothic areas and elsewhere. Some of these areas are larger and full of secrets and treasures. Others are smaller and more focused on linear storytelling. Arlathan Forest is an example of this, but there are still optional paths and offshoots to explore for loot, healing potion refreshes, and other things. There’s a minimap in each location, though linear levels like “In Entropy’s Grasp” won’t have the fog of war that disappears as you explore like some of Veilguard’s bigger locations. Regardless, BioWare says Veilguard has the largest number of diverse biomes in series history.

Dragon’s Delight

With a 10-hour day at BioWare behind me after hours of demo gameplay and interviews with the leads, I’m acutely aware of my favorite part of video games: the surprises. I dabbled with Origins and II and put nearly 50 hours into Inquisition, but any familiarity with the series the latter gave me had long since subsided over the past decade. I wanted to be excited about the next Dragon Age as I viewed each teaser and trailer, but other than seeing the words “Dragon Age,” I felt little. Without gameplay, without a proper look at the actual game we’ll all be playing this fall, I struggled to remember why Inquisition sucked me in 10 years ago.

This trip reminded me.

Dragon Age, much like the Thedas of Veilguard, lives in the uncertainty: The turbulence of BioWare’s recent release history and the lessons learned from it, the drastic changes to each Dragon Age’s combat, the mystery of its narrative, and the implications of its lore. It’s all a part of the wider Dragon Age story and why this studio keeps returning to this world. It’s been a fertile franchise for experimentation. While Veilguard is attempting to branch out in unique ways, it feels less like new soil and more like the harvest BioWare has been trying to cultivate since 2009, and I’m surprised by that.

I’m additionally surprised, in retrospect, how numb I’ve been to the game before this. I’m surprised by BioWare’s command over EA’s notoriously difficult Frostbite engine to create its prettiest game yet. I’m surprised by this series’ 15-year transition from tactical strategy to action-forward combat. I’m surprised by how much narrative thought the team has poured into these characters, even for BioWare. Perhaps having no expectations will do that to you. But most of all, with proper acknowledgement that I reserve additional judgment until I actually play the game, I’m surprised that Veilguard might just be the RPG I’m looking forward to most this year.

[animezinglife]

I saw this poll on YouTube with LOTR characters and I wanted to steal it for DA:I.

(I didn't want to leave Vivienne off this list, but I think she'd be deeply uninterested in this).

[felassan]

Dragon Age: "Let's kick off IGN FIRST with a guided tour of Thedas! We're taking a look at the Lighthouse, the Crossroads, and Hossberg Wetlands today - with much more to come through September. [link]" [source]

IGN: "Check out 22 minutes of exclusive new gameplay from Dragon Age: The Veilguard as our month-long IGN First coverage kicks off! [link]" [source]

[librivore42]

Dragon age fic masterlist

It appears it's DRAGON AGE DAY (perhaps a day late, who cares, time is an illusion)

Thanks to the @dacreateathon I've not only written so much Dragon Age fic in a matter of months, but I've probably written more in these months than I have in years! The desire to create is back, alive and well!

I never shared most of the fic on tumblr so here's a list! Not including what I've written for @dragonageterminuszine YET but oh boy it's pretty special.

Blood of my Blood

Some Bann Teagan angst. Poor man has to just stand there and watch people walk out of his life and never return.

You Call, you Call

Somewhat horrifying 'Warden's last days' in first person POV.

Ten Ways to Home

Ten character-centric poems!

Friendly Overtures

Brennan Hawke gets a gift from the Arishok. Much confusion and comedy abounds.

Lasting Legacies

A letter from one of the first Wardens, detailing the horror of the Calling but the hope of the Wardens.

Tracing One Warm Line

Eluvian Shenanigans, a Warden who lost her Alistair and an Alistair who lost his Warden cross paths and find strength and kindness.

Ye Olde Fade Tourism Service

A very silly, Pratchetty pair of mages decide to set up Thedas' very first Fade Tours!

Sing me to Sleep

A graphic novel collab of Warden nightmares, where I did the script! Delightfully gory and sad, with a soft epilogue I've written here.

Dying in Slow Motion

A very small interactive fiction about being in the Legion of the Dead and the Grey Wardens. Choose your own adventure? More like Choose your own method of coping with your impending doom.

Heart of Stone

Another collab, this time I wrote lyrics for a song! It's a melancholy thing about exiled dwarves and their enduring love for Orzammar

everything changes (some things stay the same)

A happy epilogue to @full---ofstarlight's fantastic and very sad fic about Hawke's Mabari, here.

A Soul All in Armour

A much longer fic than all the rest, focusing on Anders and a Templar and their escape from the Circle and Order systems.

Ready to Rise and Fall

A companion piece to THIS amazing illustration by @dalish-rogue, you've got to see it!

Faded Music, Soft and Low

A companion piece to this music written by the talented @maebird-melody!

One Faint Light

An epilogue to @winebearcat's heartbreaking Handers fic, find it here.

Brighthawke

This? This might make you cringe but this is a masterlist for the writing, and this has written lyrics, so it has to go here. I tried to do spoken word poetry for the first time. Inspired by this fic by @breitweisergallery which is much better.

[cosmiccrushes]

The Potential of a Painting

Solavellan || 2.1k words

on ao3 here!

summary: Lavellan visits the Lighthouse for the first time and finds, upon its walls, something she did not expect.

notes: I'm just obsessed with the idea of the frescoes in the Lighthouse being Solas' venerations to Lavellan. And her having to process that. I cannot stop thinking about it

***

The Inquisitor's boot connects with smooth, flat stone as she steps through the eluvian. 

“Home, sweet, home,” Rook says as they step through the mirror behind her. 

“Is it sweet?” Inquisitor Lenore Lavellan asks, tilting her head thoughtfully at Rook. The idea of Solas having a place, comfortable and safe, to return to after leaving his bloody trail through Thedas stirs her emotions into a muddled brew. Not quite rage, not quite relief. Bitter on her tongue. Telling in the warmth it spreads down her throat, through her stomach. 

Rook shrugs their shoulders. “Eh, it grows on you. Strange to be in a place that keeps expanding and changing as more of us arrive.” 

Strange indeed, Lavellan thinks. That Solas would choose to live in a place capable of transformation when he himself has refused to evolve. She’s heard all about this Fade-touched place from her various reports and letters from Varric. The Lighthouse- where rooms appear to accommodate Rook’s growing team. A place that seems to be made for community, to provide for its occupants. Yes, strange that Solas, who’s chosen to walk his lonely path, would take his rest here. Then again, did the Dread Wolf ever rest? The last decade spent always a step too far behind him would suggest otherwise. Her own restless nights would demand it. 

“So, a tour first? Or,” Rook pauses, “Would you like to see Varric? He's resting in the infirmary.”

Lavellan smiles at Rook’s kindness. It's been many moons since she's seen her dear friend, yet, “Thank you, Rook. But a tour first, I think.” 

Rook nods, sweeping their arm forward. “Right this way.” 

She climbs the steps from the eluvian’s chamber into a wide, circular space. Her gaze is immediately drawn upwards. Her lips part in awe at the beautiful, mysterious contraption spinning in the center of the room. 

Rook is watching her, something of pride in the curve of their mouth. “Yeah, it's breathtaking.” 

“Mmm,” Lavellan hums, rotating in a slow circle, as her gaze hunts hungrily across the low tables and chairs, prowling for signs that Solas was ever here. 

Rook’s voice breaks through her focus. “This is the main entrance hall. We take a lot of our meetings gathered here. The fireplace has a nice ambience for discussing the downfall of ancient elven gods.” Rook shrugs their shoulders playfully. “Since we're already downstairs, let's see the music room first.” 

“Music room?” Lavellan asks sharply, a memory glinting like the edge of a knife before it plunges through her. 

***

“Yes, vhenan, I've been known to dabble in piano.” 

Lavellan stares at him doubtfully. “You? Play piano?” 

Solas gives the tiniest shake of his head and his lips pull at the edges, like he's fighting back a smile. “I've dabbled over the years, yes. Is that hard for you to believe?” 

She leans an elbow atop her balcony, resting her chin in her hand. “It's hard to imagine you dabbling in anything. You seem more of an, ah…” She taps a finger against her bottom lip as she searches for the right word. “A deliberate pursuer of things.” She looks back at Solas. His eyes are fixed on her lips. 

“Ah, yes. I suppose I can be rather decisive in my drives.” His gaze finally lifts to her eyes. “Most of the time.” 

A warmth spreads through her at his words, and she thinks, not for the first time, that perhaps Solas had rather meant to dabble with her. Had stumbled into something far more definitive than he intended.

“Maybe it’s just surprising that you would have a more idle hobby.” 

“I paint, do I not? It is not so far reaching that I might enjoy leisure time with other arts.” 

Lavellan laughs, wide and open-mouthed. “Solas!” She gasps between mirthful breaths. “You don’t dabble in painting. You create-” She shakes her head, picturing the beautiful murals adorning the walls of his room. “Masterpieces,” she says softly. 

Solas stares at her like she’s the sun. Warm and bright, but difficult to look at for too long. He’s always watching her like this. With a reverence and longing that makes her ache. He’s just as likely to reach for her in those moments as he is to turn away, as though afraid she might scorch his skin. 

“Perhaps I can hear you play, when this is all over,” she gestures vaguely at where the sky is torn open, bleeding Fade and demons. 

Solas’ answering smile is brittle and breaking. Like bark peeling off a tree, revealing the growth of something new and harder underneath. Many of Solas’ smiles were like this. It maddened her not to know what they meant. 

“Maybe, vhenan,” he replies, his fingertips reaching to brush gently against her temple, trailing the shape of her vallaslin. It did not feel like the potential of a promise though. More the doleful caress of a decision already made. 

***

“Yep, a music room, complete with a piano!” Rook is saying, striding across the room to reveal a round door in the wall. Lavellan follows them down a long hall, drawing a deep steadying breath through her nose- that she immediately exhales sharply in a quiet gasp as she steps fully into the music room. 

Paint is splashed across every wall. Perilously parallel to the frescoes Solas created in Skyhold. As if sensing the lurking danger, her heartbeat increases its pace. She half expects Solas to look up from one of the armchairs, a book open on his lap, old elven endearments on his lips.  

Rook is saying something, but Lavellan cannot hear over the rushing in her ears. For across the walls, is the story of the Inquisition. Just as Solas once painted it in a tower room that smelled of earth and spice. If she could force her lungs to draw breath, would she be able to smell his scent lingering here? 

“Inquisitor? Inquisitor?” Rook's concern is etched across their brows when Lavellan looks at them. “Are you okay?” 

Lavellan nods slowly. “Yes, sorry. I'm just… taking it all in.” 

“Right,” Rook says with the undercurrent of knowing there's something more to it but being tactful enough not to ask. Lavellan's fondness of Rook grows by the moment. 

Rook leads them from the music room, re-entering the central chamber. “I'll show you the upstairs rooms next. It's amazing- everyone has their own chambers, curated specifically to meet their needs. Somehow, the Lighthouse knows what we'll require.” 

Lavellan's footsteps are heavy on the stairs, her mind tumbling through time. She watches her feet lift from step to step in a detached sort of way. She feels weighed down by the past. A past she didn't expect to encounter here. A past someone did not warn her was gaping open here, hemorrhaging from the walls. 

Color at the corner of her vision catches her attention. She turns her head, footsteps faltering as she crests the landing to the second floor. 

Now she's not just weighed down, she is falling. Plummeting to the bottom of a well where she floats, weightless, at the edge of drowning. One mouthful of broken heart away from going under. 

She spins to look out at the other walls on the second floor landing. Every single one of them is a brutal punch to the gut, a glorious blade to the bone. Like a gift wrapped in rose thorns, beautiful and promising but horribly confounding. 

Solas has painted frescoes here too. But these she has never seen. Suspects they were not made to be seen. Solas filled his empty lighthouse with the ghosts of a person still amongst the living. She swallows hard, forces tears not to fall. Would they be from grief or gratitude? She does not know. 

Every painting depicts wolves, an homage to Fen'Harel, one might think. But amongst the wolves, too prominent to be mistaken as anything but a focal point, is her. Bathed in golds and reds, fiery like the rising sun. Hair flowing long around her, like she used to wear it in moments of refuge at Skyhold. A Dalish charm dangling from her neck in the painting closest to her. Her own vallaslin depicted on the charm’s surface. As if Solas plucked it from her brow all those years ago and enshrined it here.   

Rook’s tour is forgotten. Lavellan makes her own way from painting to painting nestled between doorways, gaping at her likeness. Why? Why has Solas painted her here? All these years he has refused to stand before her- or so she thought. How many times has he stood before her portraits? Are they here for his pleasure or his penance? 

She traces a finger down her face in one of the murals. Her hair is flowing around her in this one too. Her hands clasped around the hilt of a sword at her chest, its blade pointed to the ground. A large wolf, his head tilted back in a howl, sits at her feet. She lays her palm against the wolf and a single, strangled sob chokes out of her. 

“Uh, Inquisitor?” She remembers Rook is with her. They are looking back and forth between her and the mural. “Is that you?” Rook asks, bewilderment permeating their question. 

“Yes,” Lavellan states plainly. 

“Oh,” Rook’s head bobs up and down. The upward slant of their eyebrows indicative of how baffling they find this development. “Varric never said-” 

“I’d like to see Varric now.” Lavellan cuts them off, offering a gentle smile to soften her bluntness. 

“Of course, sure, yes.” Rook’s head is still nodding. “Over here.” 

Lavellan exchanges pleasant greetings with Varric, waiting until Rook shuts the door behind them as they exit. Then she turns to Varric and demands, “Why didn't you tell me?”

“Ah, I take it you saw our very own little museum to the Inquisition.” Merriment dances in Varric’s eyes. 

“Varric,” Lavellan says, exasperated with his response. “There are paintings of me everywhere. Maker’s breath, why didn’t you tell me they were here?” 

Varric sighs. “I thought it was best for you to see it for yourself, Lenny.” 

She softens at the nickname. “I suppose I might not have believed you if you’d written to me about it.” 

“I do love a good joke,” Varric smiles dimly. “Although, I’m not sure that would have been a very amusing lie.” 

Lavellan sits on the edge of his bed, taking care not to disturb his injuries. “Then why are you so amused?” 

“Because, Lenny, don’t you see? He can be saved.” Varric says it with a conviction that presses on her heart painfully. 

“Varric, I don’t think-” 

He interrupts her with a raised palm, before she can begin the same argument they've had for the last decade. It's not that she doesn't want to save Solas from himself- that had been her own steadfast conviction ten years ago. But with every body he dropped behind him, every instance he avoided a confrontation with her, Lavellan felt him slip further away. He didn't want to be saved. The Dread Wolf had chosen, and his choice had not been her. She had to choose too. If she could not save him, she would stop him. 

“I trust my gut on this one. I’m right. Chuckles can be pulled back from the ledge, whether he knows it or not.”

“He stabbed you!” Levallen exclaims. 

Varric sighs again. “And I’ll be pissed at him about that when I see him next. But first, you need to knock some sense into him.” 

“Me?” She huffs an incredulous laugh. “Varric, he didn’t listen to me eight years ago. What makes you think he’ll listen now?” 

“Those are veritable venerations to you out there,” Varric implores, pointing at the door, the faintest tinge of vexation in his tone. “That’s not the work of a man who’s given up on what he really wants.” 

“Or perhaps it’s the graveyard where he’s laid to rest the wants he refuses to have,” she says darkly. “Besides, he is trapped in the Fade now. It hardly matters.” 

Varric studies her intently. “Doesn’t it? Do you really think he'll stay quietly locked up there forever?” Varric pauses. “Is that where you really want to leave him?”

“Damn you.” 

“All the way to the Deep Roads if you like, but I’ll still be right.” 

She smiles at her oldest friend. “You really think I can reach him this time?” 

“I think,” Varric says slowly. “He’s spent his last lonely decade painting your portrait to fill the emptiness around him.” Varric softens, voice dropping to a low murmur. “Those paintings aren't a cemetery, Lenny. They're his salvation.” 

Lavellan sinks. Slips beneath the cold, calm surface of her hope. Chokes on a lungful of potential. Varric takes her hand gently in his and squeezes as she weeps for a painting and what it might promise.

[bunabi]

Solas's bald head is to optimize aerodynamics for Maximum Fleeing Speed!

real & scientifically based

Solas should be competing at Tour de France not blowing up Thedas

[anti-eluvians]

Lavellan changes after drinking from the Well.

She had mirrored her surroundings, trying to be as bland and Chantry-like (as human-like) as possible. If she acts too inhuman this unpredictable Seeker might throw her back in the dungeon to be forgotten. Certainly no one in Haven would protest. She reaches out to other elves but is swiftly rejected. She doesn’t hear from the clan and assumes she must handle this alone. So Lavellan smiles and tells no lies. She moves softly. She doesn't know what happened in the Fade, she makes no claims of divinity, she tells jokes only when she knows they will land. She asks Cassandra if an elf should really lead this religious Inquisition, then declares the Inquisition for order, for safety, for all of Thedas. Only when asked directly does she say “I believe in the Elven gods.” And when Cassandra asks "Is there no room in your pantheon for one more god?” Lavellan bites her tongue and smiles.

After the mages, the Wardens, Halamshiral, she reflects less and dares more. She tells jokes that makes her audience groan. She charms the most prickly Orlesian visitors, teaches Harding dances and trades songs with Maryden. She helps Cole help people, she adopts Sutherland And Company, she attends drinking parties with the Chargers, she tends the wounded at Skyhold, she visits the soldiers down in that icy pass at Skyhold’s feet. She is everywhere doing good works, carefully building a reputation for the Inquisition and the Dalish and, despite herself, the Maker. She smiles at “rabbit” and tells Solas later that she just barely resisted the urge to hop around the ballroom. Leliana only gets reports of muffled screaming (as if into a pillow) after particularly nasty nobles visit. Lavellan is friends with everyone in the fortress, she is interested in everyone and all they have to say. She interviews scholars and priests, taking copious notes, until they flee the castle. She joins or starts chess tournaments open to all. She pulls in Dalish mages to show the kitchen staff (and any human mage who will listen) how to make ice cream. 

But after the Arbor Wilds, everyone tumbling to the floor in a tangle days before the Inquisition leaders can return, she stays down longer than the others. Morrigan and Solas leave immediately, and only Cole remains when she can finally stand. Over the next month the inner circle finds her staring into space more and more often. They find her in the eluvian room where Morrigan no longer goes, sitting beside the mirror with eyes closed and face lifted to the sunlight. Iron Bull and Varric hear whispers that she’s praying. Sera joins her one day but can’t stand being so close to ancient elfy magic and flees after an hour. Blackwall quietly carves her a chair in the Dalish style and asks Dorian to distract her while he sneaks it into place.

Lavellan is less prone to bad jokes. She trains alone and starts fewer games with the denizens of Skyhold. For a week she skips her nightly study session with Dorian and Josephine, driving them both frantic with worry. But after seven days she appears like clockwork, bringing a small journal crammed with notes on ancient elven culture to discuss with Dorian. She begins to wander the soldiers’ camps near the lake, or stare into the wind on Leliana’s balcony, or, more and more often, sit silent in the eluvian room. The normal folk assume she is praying to one god or another. Those closer to her hope she is meditating on the mirror and what Corypheus might do, until one day Vivienne sees a flash of light and watches her step down from an unannounced stroll in the Crossroads.

“You are the Inquisitor,” Josephine begs over dinner that night. “Please do not go to such dangerous places alone. I cannot think what we would do without you!” Lavellan blinks, her halla-horn mug paused just above the table. Most of the circle holds their breath. “I wasn’t alone,” she assures them all with the smile that Josie now dreads. “I had an excellent tour guide. The spirits of the Well are very familiar with the Crossroads.” Solas stands, drawing everyone’s attention. Impishly Lavellan adds, “And they're full of stories.” The elven apostate leaves without a word.

Morrigan and Solas rarely speak to her anymore. Lavellan pretends not to notice but her hurt is made obvious by Cole’s sudden, constant presence at her side. Varric knows she looks up to Morrigan as a hero of the Blight. Solas’ sudden withdrawal had left her spinning, untethered and angry. At first Varric (and the rest of the castle) attribute her odd behavior to the breakup, but her resilience and stubbornly hopeful outlook make that hard to believe. But many more things go missing around the fortress, and when asked Cole apologizes for leaving so many people bemused. But he also says the tree's roots have not regrown so he will not stop. Whatever he's doing helps; Lavellan begins to spend less time with the mirror and more among her people again. The chess tournaments resume though she refuses to play herself. 

But months pass and during state dinners, or out in the field on night watch, or in the war room, she closes her eyes mid-sentence to listen to something only she hears. She might nod, or frown, or smile gently, then look at the faces around her and change the subject. When Morrigan sees this she always leaves the room in a huff. When Solas sees this, The Iron Bull tells Krem over a pint, he flees like his clothes were afire.

Lavellan replaces her human-made armor with Dalish styles one piece at a time. Cassandra frets at the lack of steel until Lavellan points out that the chainmaille on her arms is safer than the hide she had been using. Only the Inquisition chestplate remains, strapped on over tabard and belts. She polishes it herself to such a shine the eye flashes when she turns, blinding enemies but calling allies. She is always fully present during a fight but the inner circle votes not to send her to the front lines; keeping her safe is more important than keeping her present.

One day while bringing books to the Inquisitor’s tower Dorian sees the Templar flag is down, neatly folded and draped across a banister. In the room upstairs, he tells the others, are the red sheets presumed lost to Cole’s helpfulness weeks ago. They gently drape from ceiling to the floor over her bed, a long warm arc like a ship’s sails. The image reminds Cassandra of something she can’t quite place until their next visit to the Exalted Plains, Dalish aravels rumbling past them on the road. Cassandra watches the Inquisitor wave to the clan with a smile on her face and something dark in her eyes. That night Lavellan goes missing again and returns at daybreak, arms full of dusty relics from a lost elven fortress nearby. The group seeks out yesterday’s clan and spends hours being thanked, fed, blessed, and promised favors for the return of such treasures. Cassandra watches the Inquisitor laugh and smile and ask if she can visit them at the next Arlathvhen. 

After months of avoiding the Exalted Plains and Emerald Graves, suddenly the inner circle is in semi-permanent residence. Lavellan vanishes for hours at a time and comes back with torn clothes or twigs in her hair. Dorian, Varric, and Vivienne work out shifts to escort her on what turn out to be simple walks. They move with her through mists and down paths, taking her gently by the arm when she’s so deep in thought she doesn’t see the trees ahead and the giants in the distance.

Then at last, after two encounters with Mythal they are ready. Everyone agrees Corypheus has been too quiet. The Inquisition has the power and people to stop him if they just knew where to look. During a late night (or early morning) war briefing Lavellan takes too long to respond to Josephine's "Does the Well have any suggestions?". The advisers trade nervous looks as her eyes sink closed then snap open. Cullen softly ventures “What um... did they say?” Her glance cuts through him, through the walls, through the stone and wood between the War Room and the library rotunda.

She walks out. 

[terrence-silver]

Started rewatching Karate Kid III, but got distracted and started watching an old western with Lon Chaney(Jr.), thought of the original Phantom of the Opera🖤, promptly went down the rabbit hole of filmography for Chaney Sr., and I realized so, SO many movies from 1910-1920 are just lost?? It broke my heart a bit, even though they were most likely very short silent films.

But! I learned that the wealthy would sometimes buy the film reel (if not the only film reel of a film.. ever) and add it to their own ✨️private collection✨️. Anyways, can you imagine how romantic of a date that would be with Terry? Watching some old, old movies, that have probably been exclusive to his family alone for years. Getting to indulge in champagne and sweets, cuddled up to 6 foot 5 man, as some poor sap has to crank the ole projector. Maybe manipulating beloved to feel exclusive in his life, or.. maybe he's sincere in trying to make beloved feel special🤭

---

I always felt a date with Terry Silver in any era would have this...slightly surreal quality.

Because, yeah, consider it; he owns so many antiques. So many rare weapons. So many vintage wines. So many cars. So many things you can only ever acquire if you're in possession of an exuberant amount of money and some questionable connections, like in the case of his old Rembrandt that was thought lost for ages or the fact that he lived in a mansion resembling a Mayan Temple (that is thought to be haunted according to urban legend), that it is a bit like entering a world of it's own entirely, or hey, to keep with the topic of this ask, even the movies this man watches, they aren't movies anyone else watches or can watch. Why? Because they're forgotten films only a sinfully rich collector like himself could get their hands on from all sorts of unlikely sources, meaning that you're literally seeing something...you've never seen before. And he might even highlight that, entirely proud of himself.

-"Now,"- He begins, slapping his hands together in contentment followed by a smile as a silent assistant handling the delicate material with gloved hands inside of his home theatre cranks that projector and the reel lights up the hall, flickering. -"I'll bet you've never seen anything like this."-

And you've indeed never seen any of the lost French documentaries of Georges Méliès between 1895-96, Japanese movies thought to have disappeared during WWII, any of the flicks on the BFI 75 Most Wanted list, Andy Worhol's first ever film, Theda Bara's Cleopatra, the complete works of Valeska Suratt, flicks Terry swears were discovered in a salt mine somewhere, the first ever 'talkies', prints thought destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire, London After Midnight, The First Men in The Moon from 1919 or goodness gracious, even some exceptionally rare erotica scraped up from the bottom of some forgotten archive somewhere because nobody else has seen any of them either in over a century. You're sipping a wine older than you are, you've just got the exclusive tour of his collection of centuries old weapons and now you're watching a movie human eyes haven't seen in over a hundred years. It is an intense experience. In fact, it's an experience that resembles a dream that is pretty difficult to explain even to your own self, which is not to say the experience would be bad, it would simply be...downright phantasmagorical. It might immediately hit you that Terry Silver is quite literally like no man you've ever met before, because no man you've ever met before has done any of this.

Or hey, since you've mentioned it, a movie exclusive to his family alone?

Why the heck not!

What if he's in possession of some short film reels or photographic clips he took in Vietnam? Hey, not all that unbelievable. Maybe you see some of familiar faces immortalized, like a young Kreese, some scrawny, curly haired kid mingling around or hey, who's that guy with the ponytail!? Goodness, is that a young Terry? If we want to go full-on creepy, he might just hum and confirm, saying yes, because who else could it possibly be? What if he owns some rather unsavory military movies he recorded; images of the dead kept like trophies. Interrogations. Torture. These things can go as far as imagination allows, or a brighter note, what if, say, his mother was an actress --- not a famous one, but someone who pumped out like one or two smaller projects in, for example, the 30's Silent era Hollywood before she got married and had him and those copies stayed in his family ever since because his father was staunch and very meticulous on who owns moving pictures containing his wife. Bought all the copies off of George Cukor for a smaller fortune back in the days, at the height of the Great Depression, no less.

-"Who is that?"- You may ask, cuddled up to him, struck with an odd familiarity following the woman on the screen. You shiver for reasons you cannot quite explain other than the fact that watching something so old can naturally give someone the occasionally eerie sensation. She vaguely reminds you of someone. -"My mother."- He could answer.

Whatever the case, whatever the scenario one deems most likely of these, or any others totally unrelated one might come up with, one thing is perfectly clear and that's that said movie evening isn't something that is easily forgotten, if ever.

[kmackatie]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Act One, part two

[x]

[h-eefic]

Would you possibly give us the cliffnotes for what the plan was for the rest of this fic? I've been following early on (like 2015??), it really truly has an important space in my heart. I even have it saved offline in case there was ever a time where it would be removed!! Even if it will never be finished, I still like to re-read it, maladaptive daydream about it, etc. I'd love to know where it would have gone in the end!! Or if you would release any drafts or whatever have you!!

I will write down what I remember! I think I've lost any outlines we had but:

Yes, Alistair was the shitty neighbor the entire time. It was so silly, we were obsessed with it.

After Liv leaves his hospital room, she spends days locked in her house, triggered bc of her parents and just generally shut down.

When she opens her door and sees Alistair standing there, she basically blue screens because he's a) real b) extremely good-looking and c) he's her what? I don't remember much about what comes next but I know they spend a few hours hashing things out, talking, putting together all the context of their friendship (discussing everyone they have in common, lmao).

Liv goes back to running away from her problems, tells him she's had all of her fears about being with him confirmed for her.

Ultimately, he talks her into giving him a chance to at least take her on a date. She walks him to her front door and he asks if he can kiss her. They do, and he's very convincing. :)

They spend a few days(?) flirting through windows at each other. For their date, he sets up a scavenger hunt for her to find the location for the date? And it was going to be so cute, he has her go to Andrastea to find a clue to the next location, which is Druffy's, and so on and so forth, he leaves clues at the places he's recommended to her. The final date I think was going to be at the beach. Liv ultimately realizes that she'd rather be with him and risk losing him than be alone and dreaming of police lights forever. It gets steamy. :)

After that, I mostly remember the two of them doing a tour around to all their friends and giving the update that they're a thing. Happy endings abound!

There was going to be an epilogue where they go on a road trip with Cullen and Lua, and we planned to commission different artists to make polaroids of them having a good time. Thedas Space Program 4 lyfe.

We really were at the finish line, and I'm so sad we didn't get to tell the rest of it. I have some small things like playlists, previously unposted sketches, and snippets that I'll leave in this Google Doc if you still want more. Emrys may have files I don't, so I welcome her to share them if she wants to.

I also welcome anyone who wants to play in the space to go buck wild, and if you do I would love to see them if you message me @bucket-fucker. I'm replaying Liv's canon as we speak, and I hope to write her again, I still had much more to say!

Thank you all for showing interest in my lil OC. And thank you for still caring. It's been a blast, and I appreciate you all.

-A.

[gingervitus]

6, 11, 12 for the rook and their partner ask thingy!

YAAAAAAS. LET'S GOOOOO.

(I am a certified yapper and Ella and Lucanis are constantly in my mind rent free)

6. What is their favorite thing to do together? Do they share any hobbies? Does your Rook teach their partner their own hobbies? Does the partner teach Rook theirs?

I think, genuinely, they talk a lot. About anything and everything. Sometimes all night even after years have passed. I know it's not a hobby or something terribly difficult to do, but there's something about an introvert opening up to their person and being able to just go on and on and on that's really beautiful to me.

Lucanis though tries everything because oddly enough the man whose life wasn't really his own has more hobbies than the woman who was traipsing about hunting for treasure. He attempts to get her interested in cooking or baking. Ella takes more to cooking because it's more "measure with your heart" than scientific exact amounts, but after one late night when she burns the garlic for a red sauce and breaks the pasta, she's banned from any kitchen until further notice. He even gives her book recommendations. Each and every romance novel annoys her, though. "Lucanis, they're horribly unrealistic, and there's certainly no way anyone could do that with only four limbs."

Eventually, Emmrich recommends some tomes on certain regions of Thedas, which Lucanis immediately sets out to find. She eats them up and actually finds herself interested in map making drawing out all the places she's been. Everywhere she wants to go. Little markers on where she'd like to go with Lucanis.

Post-Veilguard, Ella is really lost and has to search a lot for herself or rather find out who she is when she isn't Rook. Hunting treasure and drinking excessive amounts of liquor aren't really... giving her much. She's got the gold and found the glory and still feels unfulfilled.

She does take up the harp at some point and can pluck out a few songs. Not very well. Certainly not well enough to teach much of anyone else, but she and Lucanis do spend at least one evening weaving a tale about her bardic tour around Antiva over slices of lava cake.

11. Who says "I love you" first? What is the other's reaction? Who thinks it first?

Ella says it first. 10000% in the middle of the Tearstone Island battle because Lucanis won't let her say it before. Superstition gets the best of him often I think, and I LIVE for that. She pulls him out of his blight tendrils, makes sure he's okay, says she loves him, and then she's off. There's no time to think in the moment because everything is happening.

And then she's gone.

(delicious, delicious angst)

As far as thinking it goes, that's our sweet Crow. Everyone on the team is kind to him eventually in ways he doesn't expect, but Ella goes out of her way for him. Trusts his judgments. Trusts him with her life. Also the first time he thinks it is when she goes with him to talk to Teia about planning Caterina's funeral, but it's more like 'wow, I could love this person' rather than a hard declaration of love. He does lock himself inside the pantry for the rest of the night after that one while Spite loses his mind about being stuck in the mind Ossuary while Lucanis is falling in love with Rook.

12. Any inside jokes?

I had to think a lot about this one because they both laugh a lot around each other and Ella really encourages Lucanis to lean into the humor he very naturally wields since she is all jokes all day. Specific jokes, though, were tough to think of.

They definitely like to quote Taash and their really absurd questions about the Crows. Often and fondly, because my LoF babies stick together. I feel like Ella likes to feed them inaccurate information about the Crows for them to ask Lucanis about at later dates, too. In part because Taash will take it in stride, but also it's so fun to watch Lucanis very calmly and thoroughly explain what is incorrect while also frustrated with her for facilitating the discussion to begin with.

Also there is a lot of theorizing that goes on about whether Teia and Viago are on or off. Quietly hunched into each other observing them from afar, genuinely unable to tell. Usually, it ends with Lucanis saying something like, "I do not know which is worse."

Idiots in love being idiots in love for reference:

[acealistair]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard GameInformer Article Transcribed SPOILER-FREE

I've gone ahead and transcribed the GameInformer article about DA:TV for those who can't read it from screenshots/on GameInformer for whatever reason. This version specifically is the PLOT-SPOILER-FREE version! I've removed all references to the main storyline of the game (even those revealed in the gameplay footage already released, just to be sure) to mostly focus on mechanics and the author's general impressions of the game. It does still include some references to companions and their personalities/mechanic abilities, as well as a couple locations that we're already confirmed to be visiting. However, further details on specific locations are hidden.

As mentioned in my full version of the article, I've transcribed it as accurately as I could, which means including typos, grammar mistakes, improper capitalization, etc.

Throughout my research and preparation for a trip to BioWare’s Edmonton, Canada, office for this cover story, I kept returning to the idea that its next game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard (formerly subtitled Dreadwolf) is releasing at a critical moment for the storied developer. The previous installment, Dragon Age: Inquisition, hit PlayStation, Xbox, and PC a decade ago. It was the win BioWare needed, following the 2012 release of Mass Effect 3 with its highly controversial and (for many) disappointing ending. Inquisition launched two years later, in 2014, to rave reviews and, eventually, various Game of the Year awards, almost as if a reminder of what the studio was capable of.

Now, in 2024, coincidentally, the next Dragon Age finds itself in a similar position. BioWare attempted a soft reboot of Mass Effect with Andromeda in 2017, largely seen as a letdown among the community, and saw its first live-service multiplayer attempt in 2019’s Anthem flounder in the tricky waters of the genre; it aimed for a No Man’s Sky-like turnaround with Anthem Next, but that rework was canceled in 2021. Like its predecessor, BioWare’s next Dragon Age installment is not only a new release in a beloved franchise, but is another launch with the pressure of BioWare’s prior misses; a game fans hope will remind them the old BioWare is still alive today.

“Having been in this industry for 25 years, you see hits and misses, and it’s all about building off of those hits and learning from those misses,” BioWare general manager Gary McKay, who’s been with the studio since January 2020, tells me.

As McKay gives me a tour of the office, I can’t help but notice how much Anthem is scattered around it. More than Mass Effect, more than Dragon Age, there’s a lot of Anthem - posters, real-life replicas of its various Javelins, wallpaper, and more. Recent BioWare news stories tell of leads and longtime studio veterans laid off and others departing voluntarily. Veilguard’s development practically began with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. When I ask McKay about the tumultuousness of BioWare and how he, as the studio manager, makes the team feel safe in the product it’s developing, he says it’s about centering on the creative vision. “[When] we have that relentless pursuit for quality, and we have passion and people in the right roles, a lot of the other stuff you’re talking about just fades into the background.”

That’s a sentiment echoed throughout the team I speak to: Focus on what makes a BioWare game great and let Veilguard speak for itself. Though I had no expectations going in - it’s been 10 years since the last Drag Age, after all, and BioWare has been cagey about showing this game publicly - my expectations have been surpassed. This return to Thedas, the singular continent of the franchise, feels like both a warm welcome for returning fans and an impressive entry point for first-time players.

New Age, New Name

At the start of each interview, I address a dragon-sized elephant in the room with the game’s leads. What was Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is now Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Why?

“These games are reflections of the teams that make them, and as part of that, it means we learn a lot about what the heart and soul of the game really is as we’re developing it,” Veilguard game director Corinne Busche tells me. “We quickly learned and realized that the absolute beating heart of this game is these authentic, diverse companions. And when we took a step back, as we always do, we always check our decisions and make sure they still represent the game we’re trying to build.”

Dreadwolf no longer did that, but each member of BioWare I speak to tells me The Veilguard does. And while I was initially abrasive to the change - lore aside, Dreadwolf is simply a cool name - I warmed up to The Veilguard.

Solas, a Loki-esque trickster member of the Elven pantheon of gods known as the Dread Wolf, created the Veil long ago while attempting to free the elves from their slave-like status in Thedas. This Veil is a barrier between the magical Fade and Thedas, banishing Elven gods and removing Elven immortality from the world. But players didn’t know that in Inquisition, where he is introduced as a mage ally and companion. However, at the end of Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC, which sets the stage for Veilguard, we learn in a shocking twist that Solas wants to destroy the Veil and restore Elves to their former glory. However, doing so would bring chaos to Thedas, and those who call it home, the people who eventually become The Veilguard, want to stop him.

“There’s an analogy I like to use, which is, ‘If you want to carve an elephant out of marble, you just take a piece of marble and remove everything that doesn’t look like an elephant,’” Veilguard creative director John Epler says. “As we were building this game, it became really clear that it was less that we were trying to make The Veilguard and more like The Veilguard was taking shape as we built the game. Solas is still a central figure in it. He’s still a significant character. But really, the focus shifts to the team.

“[We] realized Dreadwolf suggests a title focused on a specific individual, whereas The Veilguard, much like Inquisition, focuses more on the team.”

Creating Your Rook

Veilguard’s character creator is staggeringly rich, with a dizzying number of customizable options. Busche tells me that inclusivity is at the heart of it, noting that she believes everyone can create someone who represents them on-screen.

There are four races to choose from when customizing Rook, the new playable lead - Elves, Qunari, Humans, and Dwarves - and hundreds of options to customize your character beyond that. You can select pronouns separately from gender and adjust physical characteristics like height, shoulder width, chest size, glute and bulge size, hip width, how bloodshot your eyes are, how crooked your nose is, and so much more. There must be hundreds of sliders to customize these body proportions and features like skin hue, tone, melanin, and just about anything else you might adjust on a character. Oh, and there’s nudity in Veilguard, too, which I learn firsthand while customizing my Rook.

“The technology has finally caught up to our ambition,” Dragon Age series art director Matt Rhodes tells me as we decide on my warrior-class Qunari’s backstory, which affects faction allegiance, in-game dialogue, and reputation standing - we choose the pirate-themed Lords of Fortune.

Notably, instead of a warrior class, we could have chosen mage or rogue. All three classes have unique specializations, bespoke skill trees, and special armors, too. And though our Rook is aligned with the Lords of Fortune faction, there are others to choose from including the Grey Wardens, Shadow Dragons, The Mourn Watch, and more. There is some flexibility in playstyle thanks to specializations, but your class largely determines the kind of actions you can perform in combat.

[SPOILER]

Beyond the on-paper greatness of this character creator, its customizability speaks to something repeated throughout my BioWare visit: Veilguard is a single-player, story-driven RPG. Or in other words, the type of game that made BioWare as storied as it is. McKay tells me the team explored a multiplayer concept early in development before scratching it to get back to BioWare basics. The final game will feature zero multiplayer and no microtransactions.

Happy to hear that, I pick our first and last name, then one of four voices, with a pitch shifter for each, too, and we’re off to Minrathous.

Exploring Tevinter For The First Time

Throughout the Dragon Age series, parts of Thedas are discussed by characters and referenced by lore material but left to the imagination of players as they can’t visit them. Veilguard immediately eschews this, setting its opening prologue mission in Minrathous, the capital of the Tevinter Empire. Frankly, I’m blown away by how good it looks. It’s my first time seeing Veilguard in action and my first look at a Dragon Age game in nearly a decade. Time has treated this series well, and so has technology.

Epler, who’s coming up on 17 years at BioWare, acknowledges that the franchise has always been at the will of its engine. Dragon Age: Origins and II’s Eclipse Engine worked well for the time, but today, they show their age. Inquisition was BioWare’s first go at EA’s proprietary Frostbite engine - mind you, an engine designed for first-person shooters and decidedly not multi-character RPGs - and the team struggled there, too. Epler and Busche agree Veilguard is the first RPG where BioWare feels fully in command of Frostbite and, more generally, its vision for this world.

[SPOILER] The first thing players will do once Veilguard begins is select a dialogue option, something the team says speaks to their vision of a story-forward, choice-driven adventure. After [SPOILER], there’s another dialogue choice, and different symbols here indicate the type of tone you can roll with. There’s a friendly, snarky, and rough-and-tough direct choice, and I later learn of a more romantically inclined “emotional” response. These are the replies that will build relationships with characters, romantic and platonic alike, but you’re welcome to ignore this option. However, your companions can romance each other, so giving someone the cold shoulder might nudge them into the warm embrace of another. [SPOILER]

Rhodes explains BioWare’s philosophy for designing this city harkens back to a quick dialogue from Inquisition’s Dorian Pavus. Upon entering Halamshiral’s Winter Palace, the largest venue in Dragon Age history at that point, Dorian notes that it’s cute, adorable even, alluding to his Tevinter heritage. If Dorian thinks the largest venue in Dragon Age history is cute and adorable, what must the place he’s from be like? “It’s like this,” Rhodes says as we enter Minrathous proper in-game.

Minrathous is huge, painted in magical insignia that looks like cyberpunk-inspired neon city signs and brimming with detail. Knowing it’s a city run by mages and built entirely upon magic, Rhodes says the team let its imagination run wild. The result is the most stunning and unique city in the series. [SPOILER] Busche says BioWare used Veilguard’s character creator to make each in-world NPC except for specific characters like recruitable companions. [The level utilizes] a smart use of verticality, scaling, and wayfinding to push us toward the main attraction: [SPOILER].

[SPOILER] Something I appreciate throughout our short journey through Minrathous is the cinematography at play. As a Qunari, my character stands tall, and Rhodes says the camera adjusts to ensure larger characters loom over those below. On the flip side, the camera adjusts for dwarves to demonstrate their smaller stature compared to those around them.

This, coupled with movie-liked movement through the city [SPOILER] creates a cinematic start that excited me, and I’m not even hands-on with the game.

[SPOILER]

Here, we encounter a dozen or so demons, which BioWare has fully redesigned on the original premise of these monstrous creatures. Rhodes says they’re creatures of feeling and live and die off the emotions around them. As such, they are just a floating nervous system, pushed into this world from the Fade, rapidly assembled into bodies out of whatever scraps they find.

[SPOILER]

The Veilguard Who’s Who

While we learned a lot about returning character but first-time companion Lace Harding, ice mage private detective Neve Gallus, and veil jumper Bellara Lutara, BioWare shared some additional details about other companions Rook will meet later in the game. Davrin is a charming Grey Warden who is also an excellent monster hunter; Emmrich is a member of Nevarra’s Mourn Watch and a necromancer with a skeleton assistant named Manfred; Lucanis is a pragmatic assassin whose bloodline descends from the criminal House of Crows organization; And Taash is a dragon hunter allied with the piratic Lords of Fortune. All seven of these characters adorn this Game Informer issue, with Bellara up front and center in the spotlight.

The Lighthouse

[SPOILER] Epler says, much like Skyhold in Inquisition, the Lighthouse is where your team bonds, grows, and prepares for its adventures throughout the campaign. It also becomes more functional and homier as you do. Already, though, it’s a beautifully distraught headquarters for the Veilguard.

[SPOILER] I see a clock symbol over a dialogue icon in the distance, which signals an optional dialogue option. We head there, talk to Neve, select a response to try our hand at flirting, and then head to the dining hall.

[SPOILER] From the dining hall, we gather the not-quite-Veilguard in the library, which Busche says in the central area of the Lighthouse and where your party will often regroup and prepare for what’s next. [SPOILERS] Busche says I’m missing unique dialogue options here because I’m Qunari; an Elf would have more to say about [SPOILER]. The same goes for my backstory earlier in Minrathous. [SPOILER]

[SPOILER] The ensuing cutscene, where we learn [SPOILER], is long, with multiple dialogue options. That’s something I’m noticing with Veilguard, too - there’s a heavy emphasis on storytelling and dialogue, and it feels deep and meaty, like a good fantasy novel. BioWare doesn’t shy away from minutes-long cutscenes.

Busche says that’s intentional, too. [SPOILER] “You’re defining [Rook's] leadership style with your choices.” Knowing that Rook is the leader of the Veilguard, I’m excited to see how far this goes. From the sound of it, my team will react to my chosen leadership style in how my relationships play out. That’s demonstrated within the game’s dialogue and a special relationship meter on each companion’s character screen.

Redefining Combat Once More

[SPOILER] After loading up a new save, we’re in control of a human mage.

Following the trend of prior Dragon Age games, Veilguard has completed the series’ shift from tactical strategy to real-time action, but fret not: a tactical pause-and-play mechanic returns to satiate fans who remember the series’ origins (pun intended). Though I got a taste of combat in the prologue, Veilguard’s drastic departure from all that came before it is even more apparent here.

Busche says player complete every swing in real-time, with special care taken to animation swing-through and canceling. There's a dash, a parry, the ability to charge moves, and a completely revamped healing system that allows you to use potions at your discretion by hitting right on the d-pad. You can combo attacks and even “bookmark” combos with a quick dash, which means you can pause a combo’s status with a dash to safety and continue the rest of the combo afterward. It looks even cooler than it sounds.

Like any good action game, there is a handful of abilities to customize your kit. And, if you want to maintain that real-time action feel, you can use them on the fly, so long as you take cooldowns into effect. But Veilguard’s pause-and-play gameplay mechanic, similar to Inquisition’s without the floating camera view, lets you bring things to halt for a healthy but optional dose of strategy.

In this screen, which essentially pauses the camera and pulls up a flashy combat wheel that highlights you and your companions’ skills, you can choose abilities, queue them up, and strategize with synergies and combos, all while targeting specific enemies. Do what you need to here, let go of the combat wheel, and watch your selections play out. Busche says she uses the combat wheel to dole out her companions’ attacks and abilities while sticking to the real-time action for her player-controlled Rook. On the other hand, Epler says he almost exclusively uses the combat wheel to dish out every ability and combo.

Busche says each character will play the same, in that you execute light and heavy attacks with hte same buttons, use abilities with the same buttons, and interact with the combo wheel in the same way, regardless of which class you select. But a sword-and-shield warrior, like we used in the prolgoue, can hip-fire or aim their shield to throw it like Captain America, whereas our human mage uses that same button to throw out magical ranged attacks. The warrior can parry incoming attacks, which can stagger enemies. The rogue gets a larger parry window. Our mage, however, can’t parry at all. Instead, they throw up a shield that blocks incoming attacks automatically so long as you have the mana to sustain it.

“What I see from Veilguard is a game that finally bridges the gap,” former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah, who left BioWare in 2021 before joining the Veilguard team last year as a consultant, tells me. “Uncharitably, previous Dragon Age games got to the realm of ‘combat wasn’t too bad.’ In this game, the combat’s actually fun, but it does keep that thread that’s always been there. You have the focus on Rook, on your character, but still have that control and character coming into the combat experience from the other people in the party.”

“This is really the best Dragon Age game that I’ve ever played,” he adds, noting his bias. “This is the one where we get back to our roots of character-driven storytelling, have really fun combat, and aren’t making compromises.”

Watching Busche take down [SPOILER], I can already sense Veilguard’s combat will likely end up my favorite in the series, although admittedly, as a fan of action games, I’m an easy sell here. It’s flashy, quick, and thanks to different types of health bars, like a greenish-blue one that represents barrier and is taken down most effectively with ranged attacks, a decent amount of strategy, even if you don’t use the pause-and-play combo wheel. Like the rest of the game, too, it’s gorgeous, with sprinkles, droplets, and splashes of magic in each attack our mage unleashes. Though I’m seeing the game run on a powerful PC, which is sure to be the best showcase of Veilguard, Epler tells me the game looks amazing on consoles - he’s been playing it on PlayStation 5 and enjoying it in both its fidelity and performance modes, but I’ll have to take his word for it.

Pressing Start

The start or pause screen is as important to a good RPG as the game outside the menus. Veilguard’s contains your map, journal, character sheets, skill tree, and a library for lore information. You can cross-compare equipment and equip new gear here for Rook and your companions, build weapon loadouts for quick change-ups mid-combat, and customize you and your party’s abilities and builds via an easy-to-understand skill tree. You won’t find minutiae here, “just real numbers,” Busche says. That means a new unlocked trait might increase damage by 25 percent against armor, but that’s as in-depth as the numbers get. Passive abilities unlock jump attacks and guarantee critical hit opportunities, while abilities add moves like a Wall of Fire to your arsenal (if you’re a mage). As you spec out this skill tree, which is 100 percent bespoke to each class, you’ll work closer to unlocking a specialization, of which there are three for each class, complete with a unique ultimate ability. Busche says BioWare’s philosophy here is “about changing the way you play, not statistical minutiae.”

Companion Customization

You can advance your bonds by helping companions on their own personal quests and by including them in your party for main quests. Every Relationship Level you rank up, shown on their character sheet, nets you a skill point to spend on them. Busche says the choices you make, what you say to companions, how you help them, and more all matter to their development as characters and party members. And with seven companions, there’s plenty to customize, from bespoke gear to abilities and more. Though each companion has access to five abilities, you can only take three into combat, so it’s important to strategize different combos and synergies within your party. Rhodes says beyond  this kind of customizable characterization, each companion has issues, problems, and personal quests to complete. “Bellara has her own story arc that runs parallel to and informs the story path you’re on,” Rhodes says.

In Entropy’s Grasp

[SPOILER]

“When designing companions, they’re the load-bearing pillars for everything,” Rhodes says. “They’re the face of their faction, and in this case [with Bellara], their entire area of the world. [SPOILER]” Rhodes describes her as a sweetheart and nerd for ancient elven artifacts. As such, she’s dressed more like an academic than a combat expert, although her special arm gauntlet is useful both for tinkering with her environment and taking down enemies.

Unlike Neve, who uses ice magic like our Rook and can slow down time with a special ability, Bellara specializes in electricity, and she can also use magic to heal you, something Busche says Dragon Age fans have been desperate to have in a game. Busche says if you don’t direct Neve and Bellara, they’re fully independent and will attack on their own. But synergizing your team will add to the fun and strategy of combat. Bellara’s electric magic is effective against [enemy], which is great because we currently only have access to ice. However, without Bellara, we could also equip a rune that converts my ice magic, for a brief duration, into electricity to counter the Sentinels.

[SPOILER]

I continue to soak in the visuals of Veilguard [SPOILER]; it’s perhaps the most impressive aspect of my time seeing the game, although everything else is making a strong impression, too. I am frustrated about having to watch the game rather than play it, to be honest. I’m in love with the art style, which is more high fantasy than anything in the series thus far and almost reminiscent of the whimsy of Fable, a welcome reprieve from the recent gritty Game of Thrones trend in fantasy games. Rhodes says that’s the result of the game’s newfound dose of magic.

“The use of magic has been an evolution as the series has gone on,” he says. “It’s something we’ve been planning for a while because Solas has been planning all this for a while. In the past, you could hint at cooler magical things in the corner because you couldn’t actually go there, but now we actually can, and it’s fun to showcase that.”

Busche, Epler, and Rhodes warn me that [location] will starkly contrast to other areas. They promise some grim locations and even grimmer story moments because, without that contrast, everything falls flat. Busche likens it to a “thread of optimism” pulled through otherworldly chaos ravaging Thedas. [SPOILER]

[SPOILER]

Busche [performs combat] with ease, showcasing high-level gameplay by adding three stacks of arcane build-up to create an Arcane Bomb on an enemy, which does devastating damage after being hit by a heavy attack. Now, she begins charging a heavy attack on her magical staff, then switches to magical daggers in a second loadout accessed with a quick tap of down on the d-pad to unleash some quick attacks, then back to the staff to charge it some more and unleash a heavy attack.

After a few more combat encounters, including one against a [enemy] that’s “Frenzied,” which means it hits harder, moves faster, and has more health, we finally [SPOILER]. [Boss enemy] hits hard, has plenty of unblockable, red-coded attacks, and a massive shield we must take down first. However, it’s weak to fire, and our new fire staff is perfect for the situation.

[SPOILER] It’s clear that even after a few hours with the game’s opening, I’ve seen a nigh negligible amount of game; frustrating but equally as exciting.

Don’t Call It An Open World

Veilguard is not an open world, even if some of its explorable areas might fee like one. Gamble describes Veilguard’s Thedas as a hub-and-spoke design where “the needs of the story are served by the level design.” [SPOILER] Some of these areas are larger and full of secrets and treasures. Others are smaller and more focused on linear storytelling. [Location] is an example of this, but there are still optional paths and offshoots to explore for loot, healing potion refreshes, and other things. There’s a minimap in each location, though linear levels like [SPOILER] won’t have the fog of war that disappears as you explore like some of Veilguard’s bigger locations. Regardless, BioWare says Veilguard has the largest number of diverse biomes in series history.

Dragon’s Delight

With a 10-hour day at BioWare behind me after hours of demo gameplay and interviews with the leads, I’m acutely aware of my favorite part of video games: the surprises. I dabbled with Origins and II and put nearly 50 hours into Inquisition, but any familiarity with the series the latter gave me had long since subsided over the past decade. I wanted to be excited about the next Dragon Age as I viewed each teaser and trailer, but other than seeing the words “Dragon Age,” I felt little. Without gameplay, without a proper look at the actual game we’ll all be playing this fall, I struggled to remember why Inquisition sucked me in 10 years ago.

This trip reminded me.

Dragon Age, much like the Thedas of Veilguard, lives in the uncertainty: The turbulence of BioWare’s recent release history and the lessons learned from it, the drastic changes to each Dragon Age’s combat, the mystery of its narrative, and the implications of its lore. It’s all a part of the wider Dragon Age story and why this studio keeps returning to this world. It’s been a fertile franchise for experimentation. While Veilguard is attempting to branch out in unique ways, it feels less like new soil and more like the harvest BioWare has been trying to cultivate since 2009, and I’m surprised by that.

I’m additionally surprised, in retrospect, how numb I’ve been to the game before this. I’m surprised by BioWare’s command over EA’s notoriously difficult Frostbite engine to create its prettiest game yet. I’m surprised by this series’ 15-year transition from tactical strategy to action-forward combat. I’m surprised by how much narrative thought the team has poured into these characters, even for BioWare. Perhaps having no expectations will do that to you. But most of all, with proper acknowledgement that I reserve additional judgment until I actually play the game, I’m surprised that Veilguard might just be the RPG I’m looking forward to most this year.

[sweetjulieapples]

Rook is ready for Tour de Thedas 🚲