holy shit I'm literally so fucking excited right now. I know I've made 3 dragon age posts in 3 days but I can't help it. I'VE BEEN WAITING 10 YEARS. I was in high school when inquisition came out. High school!
I'm a little bit concerned about only having 3 abilities for Rook (protagonist) and 3 for each companion. However, if its balanced well enough I actually use all the abilities I'll be pretty ok with it. Companion control was disabled for the preview.
I was a little disappointed in the Varric/Solas dialogue at the end. It wasn't bad but it felt like a missed opportunity. Varric should know by now that Solas has accepted the consequences of tearing down the veil. Talking about why this world is worth saving seems like a better line. The other dialogue seemed good. I liked rook's voice actor, I hope the voice actress is as good. Its confirmed that there will be 4 voice actors, male and female, with british and american accents.
But the visuals, holy shit. I understand now why all the tevinters look down their noses at southerners. That city was incredible! And Arlathan Forest looks fantastic too! The demon redesign is so fucking cool! I love how differently the rage and pride demons, as well as the wraiths, are animated.
Confirmed offline single player, no ea account linking, no microtransactions
limited open world, mission based quests.
Ability wheel with a higher level warrior rook
Qunari protagonist
Companion Key Art
A bunch of great environmental art
The two links below have plenty of information but if you just want to ask me go ahead.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/1ddi1lb/dragon_age_the_veilguard_preview_thread/
https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/1ddg4gn/dragon_age_the_veilguard_official_gameplay_reveal/
:format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25485981/DA_EA_AbilityWheel2_08b_5760x3244_RGB_WM.png){kind=link}
DAO was the first decent CRPG in 5 years when it launched. People got pretty attached to it I think. There are a lot of people who seem to view any deviation from that formula as a personal attack. Even though they're had 10+ years to grieve that combat system in dragon age games. One nice part about the changes is that the "hardcore crunchy crpg" crowd seems to be insuferable. Its like they are all resetnful 35+ year old cishet white guys. I think moving away from some of the DAO design choices has improved the community a lot. I'm pretty close to seeing people obsessed with dark and gritty things as a red flag.
Since inquisition we've had 2 pillars games, 3 owlcat games, 2 wasteland games, DOS2, BG3, disco elysium, solasta, tyranny, shadowrun hong kong, and a bunch of smaller, combat focused, indie titles. Jeez typing it all out like that really shows how many there have been. Personally, ever since I played hades and elden ring back to back I've become quite partial to action based systems. I used to be married to RTWP gameplay but I like that games that let me be kinda dumb while playing. Those pathfinder games make you work for every move goddamn.
I hope bioware delivers on your optimism!