Dragon Age: The Veilguard Review (Xbox Series X|S)

Dragon Age is finally back, and, let's just get it out of the way in the first sentence - BioWare has officially ended its recent poor run of form in spectacular fashion!

We feel like we have to say it straight away, after the waiting we've all done. It's been a full decade since the glory of Dragon Age: Inquisition, somehow, and we've been let down by Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem in that time. Our expectations going into this one, especially as forever Dragon Age fans, have been depressingly low.

Which, as we all know, is the very best way to be surprised - when the game you'd sort of given up on turns out be be an absolute cracker. Dragon Age: The Veilguard shifts its action-RPG shenanigans far to the north of Inquisition — it takes place a whole bunch of years after the events of that game — and features a fresh and funky cast of amazing new characters, mixed in with one or two old friends.

We don't want to give anything away (beyond what you'll already know from trailers and previews) - this is a game that's begging to be explored and experienced without being spoiled on any of its many surprises beforehand, but it is of vital importance to point out early doors that new players will have zero issues getting to grips with the story.

Do not be put off, intrigued pals and newcomers, if you've never tried this series before - this is a great big action-packed blast of a thing that requires no previous contact. Of course, it stands to reason that you'll get a little more emotion and meaning out of things if everyone in your local has been calling you 'that Dragon Age freak' for the past 20 years. However, crucially, playing past games is not a requirement in any way.

And, this speaks volumes on how well BioWare has designed every single aspect of this one, really. Everything feels as though its been constructed to maximise enjoyment, whilst minimising confusion and downtime - and without skimping on any delicious depth to boot! The writing, from lengthy speeches to throwaway battle-banter, is exquisite across the board, level-design and region variety is better than ever, combat is fast and fiendishly addicting, and the way in which you're funneled through all of this — unlocking stylish new skills and hunting down some of the sweetest loot in RPG-land as you go — is all wonderfully streamlined and slick.

Playing as customisable blank-slate 'Rook' — who's up to their neck in it trying to fight gods whilst working out if Solas is a baldy tool or not — you get to create the Dragon Age character of your dreams, with a comprehensive suite of options covering all the usual stuff like big muscles, tight pants and a mysterious scar across one eye. Choose your look, your gender, your class, your pronouns, your backstory, and then rock on into one of 2024's finest (and sexiest) adventures, we say.

You'll want to be looking your sexiest, too, for all of your sexy new friends — the cast of comrades here sure are hotties — as well as when fighting great big fights in all your sexy new gear. Sexy. And, the sexiness continues unabated in combat, with a multitude of runes and power-ups, screen-shaking combos and team attacks - and enough variables on all of that sexy loot we mentioned to make multiple replays a foregone conclusion. Fact.

Dragon Age is, as you may or may not know, famous for its dialogue choices; choices that affect the story and your relationships in big ways. That's all present and correct here and, without spoilers, there are a bunch of cool key decisions to be made that affect outcomes, available team members, sexy times and the lay of the land moving forward. Some of these are genuinely impressive if they work as they seem to — we've only had time for one very concentrated playthrough so far — and we can see us wanting to go right back through The Veilguard again as soon as we have time, just to see how it all shakes out with different decisions.

The choices don't stop at dialogue options either, and with a brand new and incredibly addictive combat system in place, Rook has an absolute ton at their disposal when it comes to rinsing the land of the evil Blight demons and other infections released by a pair of very naughty gods. This time out you control your protagonist exclusively, and scraps are all-action affairs that call to mind the God of War reboot, and even stuff like Gears of War in how intense it all gets.

You'll need to master the use of various powers though — split into fire, ice, necrotic, electrical and all the usual suspects — and get your head around a moveset that differs greatly depending on which of the three initial classes you choose. Once again, there's a ton of in-built replayability here in how differently they all feel to use, too. We pinged through our review run as a rogue, giving us a bow for ranged attacks and twin swords for getting up close and personal.

From here, you can branch out through a huge skill tree that separates into three specializations that can be fully respecced at any time. This game wants you to play around and find your comfort zone with its combat, and our rogue went from simple arrows and sword attacks to a magic-infused Veil Ranger capable of darting around - disappearing in a blaze of crows and lighting up swathes of enemies with devastating electrical specials and AOE fireworks.

Choosing a mage or warrior will start you out on a whole other road (roads we haven't even begun to explore yet) but we do know that the warrior feels very different, with the need to switch between weapons and time shield bashes giving combat a different rhythm and flavour. The rest of your comrades do a fantastic job — on normal difficulty at least — of doing exactly what they need to in battle when left to their own devices, but you can also choose to control their next attack yourself. This is done via a quick menu to keep the action pumping or by pausing the whole shebang mid-scrap to take your time, pick the best attack for each threat presented, and even pull off big-time combos that are helpfully signposted in the UI so you always know when one is available.

It's almost hilariously and effortlessly cool at certain points during bigger fights and bosses - some of the moves you've got at your disposal on timed gauges even allowing you to dodge incoming attacks in style. The rogue, as an example of this, can twirl through the air to pull off one particular special attack, and you can time this so you dodge a huge enemy shot by twirling in slo-mo through the air whilst replying with a blast of energy. It never gets old, and you can tell it's all been designed to let you do this stuff and play around endlessly with being a badass on the battlefield. With difficulty that scales up through five levels from Storyteller to Unbound, you'll likely need to experiment, too - if you're looking to grab every achievement on offer.

With regards to enemy variety, there's a great mix of darkspawn to dig into gutting here. Huge, blighted monstrosities, armoured behemoths and explode-y weirdos mix with tons of smaller foes — useful for charging all those fancy special moves — and the gamut of boss encounters feel special, bookended as they are some amazing cutscenes presented in the game's canny choice of graphical design. It all looks great, in a stylised, almost Dishonored sort of way, and segueing seamlessly from cutscene to gameplay without a change in visual fidelity makes everything feel so much more immediate and interconnected. If they dropped some of the more cutting edge graphical stuff in order to make this happen, let us tell you, it was worth it - because these seamless transitions are immediate and hugely impressive.

The combat is as addictive and action-packed from moment-to-moment, as any big AAA action game we've played this year - it really is that good, and they've managed to pack all this in and serve it up in a range of incredibly inventive and exotic locations, populated by interesting side missions and lots of opportunity to explore as you put together a crack squad of God-slayers. Indeed, once you've completed story activities in any of the regions that you can travel to through the magical mirror hub area (far more impressive than it sounds), you can return at your leisure to pick up side missions and scour every nook and cranny for the many secrets, lore, collectibles and sexy loot chests of varying rarities dotted cleverly around. There's plenty to return for, in short, and we are itching to get into 100% completion.

The addition of transmog will be massive in this regard, too. It seems like a small thing to some, perhaps, but there is so much scope to customise now, there are so many cool outfits to find — both to dress yourself and your favourite companions how you choose — and it goes hand-in-hand with how freely the game allows you to re-spec your abilities and genuinely just run amok, having a great time within gameplay systems that feel fine-tuned and then some.

You can feel the lessons that have been learned, both from recent failures, and from a changed gaming landscape since 2014's Dragon Age: Inquisition. There's far less running back and forth - and when you must it's super quick and easy to find a nearby fast-travel point. Conversations are still the beating heart of much of what's going on - this hasn't been skimped on, but they aren't as dragged out and meandering as they have been in the past. There's a slickness to it all that comes across as 'lessons having been learned very well indeed, thank you.'

And then there's all the extra gravy — the romance, the banter, the best-in-class writing and acting — and the fact you can play this offline, like the good old days - with no monetisation or constantly-online crap to worry about. It's a beautiful thing. A great big, endlessly replayable action-RPG that you can just go get lost in. There's an amazing photo-mode also, by the way - we actually had to ban ourselves from it or this review was never getting done, but you better believe we'll be going Tonto on that during our second playthrough.

In terms of negatives, there are a few creeping niggles. Although the game's menus do a hugely impressive job of making all the skills, lore, collectibles, items, stats and all that very manageable and clear to read, it does eventually start to get a little unwieldy with regards to fast travelling around. It's not a big issue, by any means, but we did find ourselves getting a tad flummoxed trying to find the location we were being pointed to from time to time, in the latter third of the experience. This can happen when you're constantly having to teleport through mirrors and end up leaving an area entirely by mistake. It's kind of worth it to have so much variety in the places you visit, but it can be a little bit frustrating at times.

Performance-wise, on Xbox Series X we'd ditch the idea of playing in the game's quality mode at this point. It looks great, you can see the difference in all the fancy bells and whistles, but it isn't worth the drop in frames in a game this action-oriented. Stick it on performance mode, where you lose a little volumetric and granular sweetness, for action that has been smooth as butter for us 99.9% of the time.

It all makes for a return to Dragon Age that's been worth every single moment we've had to wait. There's a perfect balance here between old and new - enough ties to the past, cameos and surprises to keep diehards happy, whilst at the same time welcoming a more action-oriented and streamlined experience that should see lots of newly-interested folk hop in for the ride. Dragon Age: The Veilguard wants you on the battlefield as much as it wants you in someone's bedroom, clumsily choosing every available dialogue option in an attempt to see them naked, and it's all the better for it (we've all been there).