Summary
BioWarejust showed off 20 minutes ofDragon Age: The Veilguardgameplay, giving us our first-ever look at how it plays. One of the big takeaways from this showcase is that theInquisitiondialogue wheel is back.
As before, different options are marked not only by snippets of conversation but also icons representing the tone, such as a silhouette of a head with exclamation marks inside of it, an armoured knight with their arms crossed, and a thumbs up.
Dialogue wheels have long been controversial in gaming. Some of the major complaints are that they don’t feel as intuitive with a mouse and keyboard and that the briefer prompts don’t always fully represent what your character says.
Naturally, since there’s a dialogue wheel, that means Rook is a speaking protagonist. That’s been standard for the series since Dragon Age 2 launched in 2011, introducing us to Hawke who even returned in Inquisition. Likewise,we can expect the Inquisitor to return in Veilguard.
The Dialogue Wheel Will Also Be Used For Pivotal Decisions
In the trailer, we also see Rook choosing who to bring with them when they venture to rip down the scaffolding holding up one of the statues Solas is using in his ritual.
Neve and Harding both offer to go with Rook, but one has to stay behind to defend Varric from the demons while he tries to get through to Solas. So, the dialogue wheel pops up again with the two options represented by a branching arrow much as in Inquisition.
Despite the somewhat divisive mechanic, the response to today’s trailer is already a lot more positive thanthe last one. Going by the YouTube dislike restoration add-on (which isn’t always accurate), the trailer has 3.7k dislikes to 17,000 likes, and much of the commentary during the reveal itself was glowingly positive.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
WHERE TO PLAY
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.
