Dragon Age: The Veilguard Preview - Epic Fantasy Action at its Peak

After a decade, Dragon Age is finally back. With a name change to Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I had the chance to see the first hour of gameplay in a hands-off presentation at Summer Game Fest Play Days.

Check out our hands-on preview of Star Wars Outlaws and our hands-off preview for Assassin's Creed Shadows from Summer Game Fest.

Veilguard's Character Creation is Robust

As with all Dragon Age games, we began with the character creator. We all know some people could spend hours and hours fine-tuning a character as they see fit, but we didn't quite have the time to get into the weeds.

I can say that the Dragon Age: The Veilguard character creator is incredibly robust with all of the deep character customization you could hope for, with some added things on top like changing your body type and proportions. You can even check out how your character will look in different lighting situations.

Character creation goes beyond just looks, of course. You will get to choose a backstory from your character from several factions. They could have been a Grey Warden, an Antivan Crow, a member of the Mourn Watch, a Shadow Dragon, or a Veil Jumper. 

Some of those we've spent a lot of time with, but some of those are new. All of them will regularly affect your interactions with characters in the world.

Often this sort of feature only gets mentioned every so often once you make the choice in a game, but our playthrough used the Shadow Dragon background and that came up a few times in the short hour of gameplay. Of course, who knows the rate that continues after what is essentially the prologue.

Veilguard has a substantial difficulty customization as well. There's your standard ramp up in difficulty, but you can also choose to tweak your own difficulty to fit your preferred playstyles. You can affect things like parry timing, damage, and more.

As with all Dragon Age games, you will have three classes to choose from: rogue, warrior, and mage. They will all have their own specializations to modify the way they play further, with deep progression trees as well.

Veilguard Says Goodbye Tactics, Hello Action RPG

Our playthrough showcased the rogue, with the Duelist specialization. This one emphasized parries and dodging.

Parrying and dodging isn't a usable ability, it is just something you have access to. Yes, Dragon Age has made the leap away from the more tactical gameplay to be more action-oriented.

To be clear quickly though, this is not a soulslike, nor is it quite a Devil May Cry. It lives somewhere in the middle.

Most of the combat we saw was fairly simple, and I couldn't tell you if there's a light and heavy attack, nor just how complicated the combos can get. But it's not some auto attack -- you're directly involved.

Skills are of course still incredibly important, and do bring with them some of Dragon Age's tactical lineage. You can use skills on the fly, but you also can pause the battle and queue up abilities, making sure to target the right person. Plus, it's time to stop and think if you need.

Using abilities is tied to resource generation, which is different for each class. Mages charge up their resource to use abilities, leaving them open to attack, and Warriors generate rage to use their abilities.

The rogue in our demo used momentum, which built up the more they attacked. However, the meter can get knocked down if they start taking damage.

Companions Are Still a Backbone of the Series

Just as in Dragon Age of the past, you'll have a cast of companions with you. They confirmed you'll still be giving them commands and telling them to use abilities or what have you. Or you could set up their AI to do things as well.

One big change worth mentioning is that this time around you can only have two companions in your party, not the standard three in the rest of the series.

That action wheel that pops up when you stop the battle has slots for the companions abilities as well, though I didn't get to see use of it in the demo.

When it comes to companions, it will be no surprise to learn that their stories play a big part in Veilguard. Each of them has their own deep arc that will have profound affects on the overall story if you choose to complete their stories or not. Abilities and combat effectiveness are tied to these arcs as well.

In some ways, it feels like Dragon Age: The Veilguard is taking a Mass Effect 2 approach to its companions.

There will also be the classic Bioware companion banter, and you'll have them approve and disapprove to certain choices you make over the course of the game, too.

Where the Dragon Age Veilguard Story Starts

If you don't want any of the story or state of the world spoiled for you, read no further. I want to set the stage for the demo I saw.

Creative Director John Epler was narrating the gameplay, and he said that they wanted the prologue, this opening to the game I saw, to feel like it was the final moments of a previously told story.

That scale was epic, the scenes were flashy, and it definitely felt like one of those awesome crescendo moments so many great games end with.

The prologue took place in Minrathous, the biggest and most impressive city in Thedas. It is full of tall spires and has floating buildings. As Epler put it, Minrathous uses magic like we use electricity to power the cities we live in, so it is full of wondrous things.

Taking place some nine years after Inquisition, it is that backdrop that Solas is attempting to take down the Veil with an enormous ritual. Once that tearing begins, the Veil is weakened and demons start pouring out.

Running through the streets of Minrathous looking for Solas, demons were constantly chasing down citizenry and causing all kinds of havoc. Of course, there's plenty to fight as well.

The city of Minrathous is a powerful weapon in its own right, firing magic at demons all around as you're just trying to survive -- hoping its weapons don't turn their sites on you.

Led by Varric, you eventually find where Solas was hiding and Varric confronts him in an attempt to stop him. 

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Preview | Final Thoughts

I won't say more than that for the sake of spoilers, but suffice to say that it was an absolutely wild ride and a perfect hook to get people back into the world of Dragon Age.

There's no way that level of adrenaline-inducing action, cool cutscenes, and just absolute mania has enough fuel to last the whole game, but everything that's in the prologue is a good sign for what we can hope to see further along in the game.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is poised to remind people that Dragon Age is one of the finest fantasy franchises out there.

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This was a hands-off preview of about an hour at Summer Game Fest Play Days.