Dragon Age: The Veilguard Gameplay Looks More Like Fantasy Mass Effect Than A New DA Game (2024)

While the unveiling of Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been a long time coming, the first glimpses of gameplay are making it look more like a fantasy-themed Mass Effect game than any Dragon Age game before it. As BioWare's longest-running and most successful franchise next to Mass Effect, Dragon Age has been through significant changes since its initial iteration in Dragon Age: Origins, which closely resembled the classic Baldur's Gate games which BioWare also worked on. As the series advances, however, it may be losing its RPG roots almost entirely.

With a new reveal trailer and gameplay showcase, the game originally announced as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is finally headed toward release, following what can be assumed to have been a troubled development cycle. From what's been shown so far, Veilguard directly follows up on the story of Dragon Age: Inquisition's Trespasser DLC, placing Solas as a major antagonist and his plan to tear down the Veil as the game's inciting incident. However, while Veilguard's narrative makes sense as a Dragon Age sequel, its gameplay is starting to look more like BioWare's other major RPG series.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Gameplay Looks More Like Mass Effect

Moving Away From Tactical & More Toward Action

As can be seen in Dragon Age: The Veilguard's 20-minute gameplay reveal shown on June 11 via the official Dragon Age YouTube channel, the game's combat bears distinct similarities to Mass Effect, and seems to trend even more towards action than its predecessor, Inquisition, already had. While this change isn't necessarily bad, and is in line with the more action-heavy direction that the series has been heading towards, it remains to be seen if Veilguard's gameplay will manage to retain any of the tactical feel that the Dragon Age series started with.

The most obvious point of comparison between Veilguard and Mass Effect is party composition, with the former directly mirroring the latter by allowing players to take two companions with them at a time, down from the standard three of previous Dragon Age games. In a similar vein, abilities for both Rook and companion characters in Veilguard work almost identically to Mass Effect as well - the game seemingly makes only three abilities available to Rook at any given time, and allows players to call for companion abilities through a combat wheel, instead of directly taking control of different party members.

As a result, Veilguard's previews present it as almost entirely action-oriented, like a Mass Effect game with a focus on melee combat instead of shooting and a fantasy theme replacing sci-fi. And while it would be premature to make judgments on the overall quality of Veilguard's combat from just a short 20-minute preview set at (seemingly) the very start of the game, the game does seem to lack almost any traditional CRPG or tactical elements, which Dragon Age:Inquisition retained to some degree even as it shifted more towards action as well.

Veilguard Isn't The Start Of Dragon Age's Action Focus

Dragon Age Has Been Shifting Towards Action Since 2011

Of course, Dragon Age's general shift towards more action-oriented gameplay is nothing new. Even as early as Dragon Age 2, the series had shifted away from the more classic CRPG combat style of Origins, and, coincidentally, Dragon Age 2 was also the game that switched dialogue options to a wheel more closely resembling Mass Effect. But while the two games after Origins retained the original game's tactical elements to some degree, it seems like only the barest vestiges of it will be present in Veilguard - and even then, only those parts that are like the systems in Mass Effect.

Streamlining the tactical elements of Veilguard's combat could be a net benefit, though, allowing the combat to be more focused instead of creating a greater split between action and tactics. The tactical elements that remained in Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition could be more or less ignored, after all, and so it makes sense from a certain perspective to minimize them even further. The action elements of Dragon Age are, at this point in the franchise's history, much longer-lived than the pure CRPG gameplay of Origins, and so it follows that the series would continue developing in that direction.

With the release of Baldur's Gate 3 proving that "old-school" CRPGs can still find mainstream success, however, it can be hard not to feel like Dragon Age is missing an opportunity by straying so far away from the gameplay of Origins, especially with Origins itself being something of a spiritual successor to the original two Baldur's Gate games developed by BioWare. The release, and subsequent success, of Baldur's Gate 3 would have come much too far into Veilguard's development for it to really influence the game's direction, but it does show that action isn't the only route to success.

On some levels, it makes sense that Dragon Age and Mass Effect would grow to be similar, as both franchises are developed by the same studio and share much of the same DNA. However, streamlining Dragon Age's combat also comes with the risk of diluting the franchise's identity, making it "fantasy Mass Effect" instead of allowing it to establish its own style. For better or worse, Dragon Age: The Veilguard seems to be the endpoint of the series' ever-shifting identity, and its steady de-emphasis of RPG elements.

Source: Dragon Age/YouTube

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is the fourth entry in the Dragon Age franchise and a sequel to 2014's Dragon Age: Inquisition. A classic character, Solas, will return as the new game's antagonist. The game will retain many of the series' staples, such as multiple dialogue options, party choices, romantic options, and more. Dreadwolf will act as the first direct sequel in the Dragon Age franchise.

Franchise

Dragon Age

Platform(s)

PS5 , Xbox Series S , Xbox Series X , Microsoft Windows

Developer(s)

BioWare

Publisher(s)

Electronic Arts

Genre(s)

RPG

ESRB

Mode