This year’s Summer Game Fest has been huge for dormant action-RPG series Dragon Age. Dragon Age: The Veilguard (formerly Dreadwolf) gets an official name change, new cinematic trailer, and new gameplay reveal trailer.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been in development for nearly a decade, after the last main series game, Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014. The anticipated fourth game in the series has been plagued by development woes, including complete game concept redesigns, and company turnover.
It was first teased during the 2018 The Game Awards. In 2022 it was given the full title, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, referring to former party member-turned antagonist, Solas, from Inquisition. But a new name change refocuses to center more on the hero’s team, as with Inquisition.
Dreadwolf was a way cooler name, though. Ah well.
The first official trailer for The Veilguard aired during the Xbox Games Showcase. The cinematic trailer focused entirely on the new and returning party members, which is also what BioWare RPGs are known, and beloved, for. But the tone was a bit quippy and light-hearted for many fans. At times, it looked more like a hero shooter than an RPG.
Today, EA and BioWare unleashed the first official gameplay trailer. It features our customizable protagonist racing alongside Varric, Harding, and Neve to stop Solas from completing a powerful ritual.
It’s a little spoilery, but also from the very beginning of the game.
Returning characters should make many a Dragon Age fan happy, though combat is a lot more action-y and less tactical-RPG than previous entries. Players can pause the action to bring up a skill wheel to use abilities, issue party commands, and set up combos, though we didn’t see much of that in the trailer.
To be fair, the blog posts states that “there’s also a layer of tactical depth for those who want to dig in, which we really didn’t get to cover in the video.”
Look fore more Dragon Age details and promotions throughout the summer leading up to its full release later this year on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
