This summer, BioWare studio announced Dragon Age: The Veilguard and began actively sharing details about the game. Game Informer published a comprehensive article today, dedicated to the plot, combat system, progression, and more.
Story (with spoilers):
- After the prologue, a mission in the Arlatan Forest begins. The artistic style of the location corresponds to high fantasy in the spirit of Fable;
- The main character becomes a leader not because of their chosen status (a typical setup in BioWare games), but due to competence;
- The refuge and main hub will be called The Lighthouse. There, heroes will prepare for missions and engage in dialogues.
Combat System:
In terms of controls, each character plays roughly the same. Attacks, abilities, and other interactions are performed with the same buttons;
However, the heroes have plenty of unique abilities. For example, a warrior can throw a shield like Captain America, and a rogue shoots from a bow;
Mages, unlike warriors and rogues, do not have parrying but can create a magical barrier;
Former executive producer of Dragon Age Mark Darrah believes that the studio has implemented the best combat system in the series' history. «Uncharitably, previous Dragon Age games got to the realm of 'combat wasn't too bad»;
Progression and Character Editor:
- The skill tree is a hexagon with many abilities and talents. Specializations are located on the outer sides;
- Companion progression is not as diverse, but it has its own features;
- The game will not have overly complicated talents with lots of numbers. Instead, the developers have created understandable perks like «armor damage increased by 25%»;
- There are 50 levels of progression in the game, but you can reach specialization much earlier;
- In the character editor, you can adjust not only hip width and skin tone but also, judging by the mention of «bulge size,» choose genitalia;
- The editor also has four voice options with the ability to adjust pitch.
Performance:
- The PC version runs well, and there are graphical modes on consoles.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard will be released in 2024 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5. You can find more details here.