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Cliff notes on the new info on Dragon Age: The Veilguard in today’s issue of Game Informer (magazine hub link):

Edit/update: I tided up this post. ^^

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In CC you can customize things like shoulder width, chest size, glute size, hip width, how bloodshot your eyes are, nose crookedness, and more

There are hundreds of sliders for body proportions

CC detail: “Features like skin hue, tone, melanin”

There is nudity in DA:TV, “which I learned firsthand while customizing my Rook” in CC

Rook’s backstory also affects “reputation standing”, along with the other previously-known things like in-game dialogue etc

Lords of Fortune are pirate-themed, “piratic”

Rook ascends because of competency, not because of a magical McGuffin, contrasting with the 'destiny-has-chosen you’ angle DA:I has for the Inquisitor

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

The 4 voices we can choose for Rook each have a pitch shifter in CC

The game starts inside the bar (as previously detailed in other coverage)

In some dialogue wheels there is a “romantically inclined ‘emotional’ response” option. These are the replies that will build relationships with characters, romantic and platonic alike, but you can ignore them if you want to. Giving a companion the cold shoulder might nudge them into another companion’s embrace however

Bellara’s surname is Lutara

In the streets of Minrathous (in the opening segment of the game), there is a wide, winding pathway with a pub which has a dozen NPCs in it (is this The Swan tavern?)

The devs used the DA:TV CC to make each in-world NPC, except for specific characters like companions

There is smart use of verticality, scaling and wayfinding in the gameplay

If you play as e.g. a qunari Rook, the camera adjusts to ensure larger characters like them loom over those below. The camera also adjusts appropriately for dwarves to demonstrate their smaller stature

Neve Gallus is described as being capable

The Venatori Cultists we fight in the opening segment of the game are seizing the chaos caused by the demons unleashed by Solas’ ritual to try and take the opportunity to take over the city

As you traverse deeper and deeper into Solas’ hideout, more of his 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 the elves”

At the heart of Solas’ hideout is his personal eluvian

Demons are fully redesigned in this game, on their original premise as creatures of feeling that 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”

In the opening, we stop Solas’ ritual and save the world. “For now” anyways. Rook passes out moments later and wakes up in a dream-like landscape to the voice of Solas. He explains that a few drops of Rook’s blood interacted with the ritual, connecting them to the Fade forever. (I guess this is why they said in the Discord Q&A on June 14th that Rook has good reasons to want to avoid blood magic)

He also says that he was attempting to move Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain (confirming who the two Evil Gods are) to a new prison, because the one he had previously constructed was failing. Unfortunately, Solas is trapped in the Fade by our doing, and the two gods are now free. “It’s up to Rook to stop them”, thus setting the stage for our adventure

Rook wakes up after this 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. This is where the team bonds, grows, and prepares for its adventures. It 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, 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, which is 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”

Clock symbols over dialogue icons signal optional dialogue options

At this point you can head over to Neve, engage in dialogue, and try and flirt with her

There is a dining hall in the Lighthouse. A plate, cutlery and a drinking chalice are at the end of a massive table. Matt Rhodes says that this is a funny and sad look at Solas’ isolated existence, and an example of the detail BioWare’s art team has put into DA:TV. “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”

There is also a library, which is the central area of the The Lighthouse. It’s here that the party will often regroup and prepare for what’s next

The team decides that it must reach the ritual site back in Arlathan Forest. Corinne Busche said that the writer was "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”

The team decide their next move. They go to Solas’ eluvian and back through to the ritual site in Arlathan Forest. However, it’s not fully functional without Solas, and while it returns them to the Forest, it’s not exactly where they want to go. Then a demon-infested suit of mechanized armor known as a Sentinel attacks them, and two NPCs appear to save you: the Veil Jumpers Strife and Irelin. Harding recognizes them, which you would expect if you read the comic Dragon Age: The Missing. They are experts in ancient elven magic. A cutscene ensues and we learn that Strife and Irelin need help finding Bellara Lutara. This cutscene is long and has multiple dialogue options.

“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”

For Rook, this story is about what does it mean to be a leader? We define their leadership style with our choices. “From the sound of it, my team will react to my chosen leadership style in how my relationships play out.” This is demonstrated within the game’s dialogue and a special relationship meter on each character’s companion screen

Bellara is deep within Arlathan Forest, and following the events of the prologue, 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.

In gameplay/combat, players complete every swing in real time. Special care was taken in development for animation swing-through and cancelling. We can dash, parry, charge moves, and a completely revamped healing system that allows us to use potions at our discretion by hitting right on the d-pad. You can combo attacks and even ‘bookmark’ combos with a quick dash, which means that you can pause a combo’s status with a dash to safety and continue the rest of the combo afterward

Abilities can be used to customize your kit. They can be used on the fly as long as you account for cooldowns

When you pause and pull up the ability Wheel, it highlights you and your companions’ skills. There you can choose abilities, queue them, target specific enemies, and strategize with synergies and combos

Each character plays the same in that you execute light and heavy attacks with the same buttons, use abilities with the same buttons, and interact with the combo wheel in the same way, regardless of which class you select

Sword and shield warriors can hip-fire or aim their shield and throw it like Captain America

Warriors can parry incoming attacks which can stagger enemies. Rogues have a larger parry window. The mage the writer played couldn’t parry at all. Instead they throw up a shield that blocks incoming attacks automatically, so long as you have the mana to maintain it

On the start/pause screen: it has the map, journal, character sheets, skill tree, and a library for lore information. You can use it to cross-compare equipment and equip new gear for Rook and their 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. There aren’t in-depth minutiae, just "real numbers". For example, an 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 spec, complete with a unique ultimate ability

“Sentinels and legions of darkspawn”

Combat is flashy and quick, with different types of health bars. Greenish-blue represents a barrier, which is taken down most effectively with ranged attacks

The game is gorgeous, with sprinkles, droplets, and splashes of magic in each attack a mage unleashes

The game looks amazing on consoles both in fidelity and performance modes

The mission to find Bellara is called “In Entropy’s Grasp”. You find her. She is the first companion you recruit (as Neve auto-joins). If your background is Veil Jumper, you get unique dialogue here with Bellara. She explains that everyone there is all trapped in a Veil Bubble, and there’s no way out once you pass through it. Despite the dire situation, she is bubbly, witty, and charming. She is spunky and effervescent

Companions are the faces of their factions, and in this case with Bellara, their entire area of the world. She is our window into Arlathan Forest. She is described as a sweetheart and a nerd for ancient elven artifacts, which is why she’s dressed more like an academic than a combatant. Her special arm gauntlet is useful both for tinkering with her environment and taking down enemies. While Neve uses ice magic and can slow time with a special ability, Bellara specializes in electricity, and she can also use magic to heal you. Her electric magic is effective against Sentinels. “However, without Bellara, we could also equip a rune that converts my ice magic, for a brief duration, into electricity to counter the Sentinels”

If you don’t direct your companions in combat, they are fully independent and will attack on their own

You progress at this point through the Forest, encountering more and more darkspawn. Bellara says that they have never been this far before because the underground Deep Roads, which they usually escape from, aren’t nearby. However, with “blighted” (BLIGHTED!) elven gods roaming the world, and thanks to the Blight’s radiation-like spread, it’s a much bigger threat in DA:TV than any prior DA game

The Forest has elven ruins, dense greenery and disgusting Blight tentacles and pustules

The style of the game is more high fantasy than anything in the series thus far and almost reminiscent of the whimsy of Fable. Matt Rhodes says that this is the result of the game’s newfound dose of magic: “The use of magic has been an evolution as the series has gone on. 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.” The Forest’s whimsy will starkly contrast to the game’s other areas. The devs promise some grim locations and even grimmer story moments because, without that contrast, everything falls flat. Corinne says it’s like a “thread of optimism” pulled through otherworldly chaos ravaging Thedas. At this point in the game, Bellara’s personality is that thread

We can advance our bonds with our companions on their own personal quests and by including them in our party on main quests. Every Relationship Level you rank up, shown on their character sheet, nets you a skill point to spend on them. “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”. Each companion has access to 5 abilities.

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” (They’ve said that all of the companions have this too in previous promo material)

You progress deeper into the forest and Bellara spots a floating fortress and thinks that the artifact needed to destroy the Veil Bubble is in there. To reach it, we must 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. Rook can acquire abilities like Tinker later to complete such tasks in instances where Bellara, for example, isn’t in the party

Bellara has to activate three of these in the Forest to reach the castle. Each one you activate brings forth a bunch of Sentinels, demons, and darkspawn to defeat

You can create Arcane Bombs on enemies. It does high damage after being hit by a heavy attack

It sounds like mage characters can charge heavy attacks on their magical staffs. “then switch to magical daggers in a second loadout accessed with a quick tap of down on the d-pad to unleash some quick attacks”

Some enemies are “Frenzied”, meaning that they hit harder, move faster, and have more health

After a few more combat sections, including against a Frenzied sentinel, we reach the center of the temple. In there is an artifact called the Nadas Dirthalen. Bellara knows that this means “the inevitability of knowledge”. Before we can progress, a darkspawn ogre boss attacks, hitting hard with unblockable, red-coded attacks and a massive shield that you need to take down first. It is weak to fire

After defeating it (it’s a climactic arena fight), Bellara uses a special crystal to power the artifact and remove it from the pedestal, which destroys 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. Bellara thinks that she can fix it (fixing broken stuff is her thing), so the group heads back to the Veil Jumper camp. The writer’s demo then ended.

The design of the game is not open world. The devs describe it as a “hub-and-spoke” design where the needs of the story are served by the level design. A version of DA:I’s Crossroads return (the network of teleporting eluvians) and this is 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”. e.g. Minrathous, tropical beaches, Arlathan Forest, “to grim and gothic areas and elsewhere”. Some of these areas are large and full of secrets and treasures. Others are smaller and more focused on linear storytelling. Arlathan Forest is an example of this, but it still has optional paths and offshoots to explore for loot, healing potion refreshes, and other things.

Each location has a minimap, though linear levels like In Entropy’s Grasp won’t have the 'fog of war' that disappears as you explore like in some of the game’s bigger locations

The game has the largest number of diverse biomes in DA history

The Thedas of DA:TV “lives in the uncertainty”. “the mystery of its narrative”, “the implications of its lore”

The writer is surprised by BioWare’s command over the notoriously difficult Frostbite engine, and by how much narrative thought the dev team poured into these characters, even for BioWare.

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[source: the Game Informer pages from Issue 367 - the cover story from June 18th (link), two]

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