Summary

  • To truly appreciate Dragon Age: The Veilguard, playing the previous games and DLCs is essential due to interconnected stories and recurring characters.
  • The complexity of Dragon Age lore may be overwhelming for newcomers, as plot summaries and reading up on the lore may not provide enough context.
  • BioWare's decision to maintain continuity in the Dragon Age series, rather than starting fresh for new players, adds depth and significance to player choices.

I’m not a big Dragon Age fan, but I have some familiarity with BioWare’s library – Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was the first game I ever fell in love with, and I’ve played most of the Mass Effect series – but I didn’t get into Dragon Age as a kid, and out of all the games, I’ve only made it through a couple of hours of Inquisition. That said, I’ve read a lot about it in an attempt to catch up in time for Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s impending launch.

I don’t think reading will be enough. Dragon Age’s lore is pretty obtuse, to the point where parsing big lore dumps can be headache-inducing. As with many fantasy series, plot summaries feel like you’re reading latin unless you’ve experienced the games yourself. Alas, I don’t have time to finish Inquisition, let alone all three games, because I have other things to play and write about that aren’t over a decade old.

Do You Have To Play The Games That Came Before The Veilguard?

Well, yes! While Dragon Age has a different protagonist in each game, positioning itself more as an anthology series than one continuous story, most of the games are linked in some way and have recurring characters. The Veilguard, in particular, seems to be centered on Solas, an elf who appears as a party member in Inquisition. For this story to matter to you, you have to know the role that Solas played in Inquisition and how we got to this point. You also need to play Inquisition’s Trespasser DLC, which leads directly into The Veilguard.

And that’s just the stuff that leads directly into this new game. If you want to understand the world and the tensions between factions more clearly, you’ll probably need to play from the start – despite reading into the lore before starting Inquisition, I still wasn’t super clear why certain groups were beefing with each other, and the lore only gets more complex as the series goes on. I’m sure The Veilguard will attempt to give players enough context to at least understand what’s going on, but its story will likely lose narrative resonance if you have no idea what happened before.

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This Refusal To Start Over Is Pretty Cool, Though

A lot of modern game series have resorted to amnesiac protagonists, switching out protagonists, or starting completely anew within the same universe in an attempt to draw in audiences who were previously unfamiliar with the franchise. I get it – gaming is a massive industry now, and catering to a new generation that hasn’t played every game in a 20 year old series is good for business.

At the same time, I respect BioWare’s refusal to turn away from the epic fantasy story it’s been consistently crafting for so long. After all, a longstanding mechanic of the series is that your choices from previous games have knock-on effects in present events, and that’s part of the core of the games – your decisions change the world and people around you, and to throw that all into the wind to entice a new audience would defeat the purpose.

So, no, it’s not easy for new players to get into Dragon Age. But instead of standalone games, we’re seeing a series with real continuity. BioWare’s insistence on continuing to write a single story instead of starting over entirely is a rare sight, and we should appreciate that there are still games like this being made. In an industry largely defined by the pursuit of exponential growth and bigger audiences, The Veilguard’s purpose is all the more precious.

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard

RPG Systems 4.0/5 69 5.9/10 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 80/100 Critics Rec: 71% Released October 31, 2024 ESRB M For Mature 17+ // Blood, Nudity, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Violence Developer(s) BioWare Publisher(s) Electronic Arts Engine Frostbite
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf. 

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