Dragon Age: The Veilguard has finally been played by real-life people, including our own US managing editor Rollin Bishop, and I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself by saying: It sure sounds like BioWare is back, baby.
Early Dragon Age: The Veilguard impressions are uniformly positive. I spent a good amount of time searching the web specifically for anything other than a glowing preview, and I came up short. We usually wouldn't make room for a news round-up on hands-on previews because journalists haven't had the time to complete the game and thus are unable to score it definitively, but in this case the response is so overwhelmingly enthusiastic and, after two whiffs from BioWare with Anthem and Mass Effect Andromeda, so pertinent that it stands out.
Starting with our own Dragon Age: The Veilguard hands-on preview, Rollin said the sequel 10 years in the making "feels like it's worth the wait" after playing it for seven hours. Following a period of healthy trepidation, he was more than pleasantly surprised by his time with the game: "I've come to believe that yes, I can and will happily play the latest and greatest Dragon Age for another 10 years if necessary. The story, as much as I've seen, is just as epic and devastating, the companions are compelling, and it's mechanically much more expansive in some ways while tighter in others."
Our friends over at PC Gamer were similarly enthused to see their concerns put to rest. "Dragon Age: The Veilguard is going to be called BioWare's comeback," reads PC Gamer's preview. "It isn't built on the multiplayer trend-chasing that plagued Anthem, and from the six hours I got to play during a hands-on preview event this month, Veilguard didn't seem to be the buggy mess that Mass Effect Andromeda was, either. It has all sorts of features that prove BioWare was listening to its players. And critically, it's BioWare doing what it's meant to be best at: gorgeous, intense, intimate RPGs."
Elsewhere on the internet, Eurogamer said Dragon Age: The Veilguard "feels like the series' Mass Effect 2 moment", and I don't need to explain what a compliment that is to anyone who's played Mass Effect 2 or has had the displeasure of not having played Mass Effect 2 but being friends with someone who had.
GameRant, meanwhile, was bold enough to say Veilguard will be a "definite GOTY contender" after playing it for six hours. Noted Dragon Age super fan Shinobi602 gave his own detailed impressions on Twitter, ultimately agreeing "this feels like BioWare is back." IGN's writer said she's "excited for it in a way I haven’t quite felt about another game in quite some time."
This could go on and on. It's too early to make any definitive judgments, as again no one outside of BioWare has actually played through the full game, but needless to say, these previews have shifted the conversation around the next Dragon Age and given fans of the series new reasons to be hopeful.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard releases on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on October 31.
Meanwhile, Dragon Age: The Veilguard creative director answers all of our important questions and some less-important ones: "I am a Final Fantasy 10 diehard; I love the Sphere Grid".
