Have you been trying to find a single-player role-playing game to fill that little itchy spot in your gaming titles but can’t seem to find something to sink some time into, well developers BioWare and Electronic Arts have you covered with the fourth instalment into the Dragon Age series with Dragon Age: The Veilguard. This title is a sequel to the 2014 title Dragon Age: Inquisition and it is set 10 years after the events in Inquisition.

You step into the boots of Rook who is the newest hero added to the Dragon Age series and the freedom you get with this character is like nothing I’ve quite seen before. You are setting off on an adventure in the new world of Thedas which is a vibrant land of wilderness, treacherous labyrinths, and glittering cities that look stunning but unfortunately, two ancient elven gods have broken free from where they were put in deep darkness they have one mission in mind and that is to destroy the world.

I’ve said this before and nothing has changed, I’ve never been one for character creation but this game had me gobsmacked. Starting with the actual character creation side of things looked amazing and the attention to detail you can put into the character creation, you could almost make someone who looks identical to you if you wanted to spend the time doing that. You don’t have to run a human build if you don’t want to either you have the options of Elf, Qunari, Human, or Dwarf which all have great customisable features, and I’m pleased to announce this is the first title where all hair models looked stunning and realistic.

Once you have finished making your character look cool you can then move on to some big choices with the title. The first is the faction you want to be involved with which is broken into six, which are Veil Jumpers, Grey Wardens, The Mourn Watch, Lords of Fortune, Antivan Crows, and Shadow Dragons. While selecting it will explain the difference between each faction, but for me, it came down to which armour looked the coolest, which was Antivan Crows with their gothic-looking dark armour. The character customisation does not stop there as you also get to choose a class you want to rock, and anyone who knows me knows I run tank builds, so I went for a Warrior which is then broken down into three more sections. It is the same for Mage and Rogue so you can fine-tune the class to your play style.

I mentioned before how beautiful Theadas is and not to mention the size is awesome. There are two main areas you will spend the most time around, and then it’s broken down into different locations which all have their characteristics making them stunning to adventure around. The main location, or if you want to call it home is the “Lighthouse”. This is where everyone comes back to with companions getting their rooms which changes over time progressing through the story.

This is also where you can upgrade your weapons and armour at the caretaker’s bench. The second place you will spend some time if you enjoy exploring and seeing everything to offer is “The Crossroads”. This is the main connection to the entirety of Theadas, which makes things convenient and adds to the immersion of not just jumping and teleporting around, which you also have access to if needed for faster travel. Theadas is broken down into six beautiful regions which are Arlathan Forest, Hossberg Wetlands, Minrathous, Necropolis Halls, Rivain, and Treviso which are everything from ancient elven cities to dark wetlands.

There are some companions you will meet along the way which I’m not going to reveal. Who you meet is a big part of the story and your actions on how you speak to them could result in good or bad things. There are seven people in total you will have on your team as a companion, who all have different abilities and builds that will help along the way. Before you set out on each quest you can choose the two companions you want to take with you for some help. You will build relationships with all your companions whether it be friends or maybe a little more like a love interest.

Anyone who is a fan of these styles of games will be well and truly used to using skill trees and using them to your advantage. The more things you unlock on the skill tree, the more special moves or in-game abilities you can unlock to dominate the enemies. The coolest part is if you decide to go a different route in the middle, you can take the points back off what you have unlocked and put the points back elsewhere to try a different build model.

If you are returning to RPGs or even new to them, the controls are more complex than standard adventure games as you might need to do a couple of combinations of buttons to activate special moves. The game does an amazing job with a smaller tutorial built into the story that shows you the basics of the title so you are not lost pressing buttons trying to figure out what is what. It took me a little while to get used to pulling the trigger and pressing one of the buttons to do the special moves as I kept clicking the opposite trigger and getting hit by the enemies. Otherwise, the controls were well-mapped and simplistic enough that you could enjoy the game. The combat felt repetitive and like I needed to keep a button-mashing attack.

I’ve been loving games with rich storylines and great voice acting lately, and needless to say, the developers nailed it with this title. The different voice actors were excellent, and none of them sounded amateur. They sounded like they knew what they were doing the entire time which I loved and drew me into the story even more. Sometimes the noises the demons made became repetitive but they were never alive long enough to annoy me. There was never a time whilst playing this title when I felt like I needed to turn down the audio as things weren’t repetitive and it all worked well and even running around the dialogue from your companions made the time fly.

There is a new magic to these types of games with the current generation of gaming and the power they can pull from the consoles to make them look so magical. The lighting and shading with all the colourful lights from your special abilities all came together super nicely and made a super enjoyable game to play. The developers looked at the attention to detail in this title and how the world should look which they nailed. The UI looked fantastic and the best part was it was editable so you could make the game your own if you were not a fan of how the developers did it.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a super enjoyable storyline that immerses you into the boots of Rook. The title is one of those titles that pulls you in and makes you want to keep playing. The dialogue, cutscenes and stories you get to see whilst creating your own story were fantastic. I would recommend this to anyone even if you are like me and have never played a Dragon Age game before the game was super enjoyable.

Written by: Hayden Nelson