Two weeks ago, BioWare shared a new post that goes deep into explaining the combat and builds available in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
The game debuted with new gameplay that looks way, way, different to how the previous three Dragon Age games ever played before. It’s certainly an action-RPG now with parries and dodges. But the deep dive, which includes 10 minutes of gameplay footage of the Warrior class, paints an impressionn that deep down it’s still an RPG with its wealth of choices on how to build and how to play your character.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard will have the expected three classes- Warrior, Rogue and Mage. For the player character Rook, they can pick one of three specilisation of each class. The gameplay video shows off the Champion, a defensive subclass that can tank damage. There’s a full skill tree that branches even further than what’s seen in Dragon Age Inquisition (but not Final Fantasy X Sphere Grid levels of complexity).
Rook can have four active abilities to slot in and a full range of gear slots. There are also passive abilities that can complement a build- the gameplay shown off focuses on fire damage as the mission will see the team fighting against Darkspawns which are weak to fire.
Combat-wise, Dragon Age: The Veilguard really is an action-RPG in that it too has a stagger system. There’s blocks, parries and dodges, with attacks being able to be cancelled into dodges.
While you can’t completely control companions anymore, the commands you can issue to companions with the Ability Wheel has much more options than what you’d get in a Mass Effect. You can specify which targets for them to attack and also use specific abilities.
The latter is important as The Veilguard brings back the concept of Primers and Detonators. Specific abilities have wombo-combo potential as seen in Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem. In the gameplay shown, Clumps of crowd-controlled enemies are frozen solid by a Primer ability which is then followed up by another attack that deals bigger damage.
What’s showcased is here looks convincing. And should keep longtime fans less worrisome given that there’s still plenty of ways to build, customise and play. This is not a watered-down or dumbed-down version of the RPG combat rooted in the style of CRPGs.
Dragon Age: The Veildguard will be out on October 31 for the PS5, PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, EA App) and Xbox Series X|S.