Dragon Age: The Veilguard Preview: BioWare Finally Gets the Character Creator I Always Wanted

After ten years, we’re now just over a month away from Dragon Age: The Veilguard . I’ve played a whopping seven hours of BioWare’s first original game since 2019’s Anthem and fourth mainline entry in the Dragon Age series, starting with the prologue and loading in various saves as I go along. As a longtime fan, I’ll say that ten years is a very long time, but so far The Veilguard has not disappointed.

Getting into character

Now, I could talk to you about the battles (and I will) or the beautiful locations (which are also coming) or how it felt to see Varric and Solas again. Or I could jump straight into the character creator and start with: There. Is. So. Much. Hair. Look, I loved Dragon Age: Inquisition , but fans have long recognized the character creator’s limitations. Veilguard blew me away in that regard. After the lackluster options of the previous entry, it’s wild to see what we have to look forward to. Thirty hair options for Qunari and 88 for non-Qunari, complete with some gorgeous physics as Rook runs around Northern Thedas. There are so many different hair textures represented, whether you want completely straight hair, 2B waves, or 4C curls. When creating my character, I was immediately drawn to a long braid that swished around as fast as I did.

Qunari horns are also vastly improved. With 49 unique styles, the options range from large and imposing to decorative or even asymmetrical. That said, yes, their foreheads can look pretty jarring. I played as a Qunari mage for most of my preview, and will say that I got used to the look pretty quickly. Drago n Age: The Veilguard actually marks only the second game in the series where you can play as a Qunari, so the odd forehead-versus-face imbalance feels like stylistic growing pains. I remain curious to see if more time with the character creator could help. The Arishok from Dragon Age 2 is, in my opinion, such a beautifully crafted model, and I’d love to be able to create a Qunari Rook that feels just as memorable.

Of course, the customization doesn’t stop at hair (or horns). Every aspect of your Rook is editable, even facial asymmetry is possible if you so desire. Sliders let you alter everything from the shape of your head to the melanin in your skin to the presence of vitiligo. Perhaps my favorite addition, though, is the introduction of body diversity. Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 had some of this, but nothing like what you can get in The Veilguard, which more closely resembles the breadth of the character creator in Dragon’s Dogma 2. There are plenty of presets to choose from for each of the four races, all with different heights and muscle/fat distribution. Once you’ve picked your preset, though, you can build upon those elements as much as you like.

First, there’s a triangulation of coordinates that allows for many unique combinations of body types that are thinner, taller, or more muscular. Height sliders are fun—especially when it means watching my particularly petite elf ruin years of Solas’ ritual planning by pushing over a statue. The options seem nearly endless. There’s even a glute slider, and yes, I gave my Rook one hell of an ass. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t even gotten started on facial hair, makeup, scars, or tattoos. As an elf, my Rook wore some vallaslin, but there are so many different designs for both face and body to experiment with.

While I haven’t spent much time exploring the Inquisitor’s customization options, I just know that we’ll all get the chance to create them in the way we’ve always imagined. Also, it might be a relief for some of you to know that Veilguard ditches the awful green lighting of Inquisition’s character creator and instead allows you to cycle through different lighting options to create Rooks that look just as good in gameplay as they do when you’re creating them.

Fight the odds

Combat, meanwhile, was a refreshing change from DA:I. My go-to class has always been a mage, and even as a Knight-Enchanter I often felt like I was standing in one place, holding down the left trigger. This felt like a return to the pace of DA2, with innovations that improve the overall experience of combat. The Veilguard introduces a new fighting style for mages, with an orb and dagger geared toward close-quarters combat. It’s tailor-made for players like me who love magic but also like to stab.

During my preview, I played through the prologue and then skipped through various points in Act 1, so I was able to really quickly experience the progression that Rook and his companions can make as fighters. We may not be able to take control of our companions this time around, but The Veilguard really encourages strategizing with them. They’ll call out to you when they’ve built up their mana or stamina, and the ability wheel even suggests combos. My focus during the event was mission-driven, so I didn’t get as much chance to interact with the characters as I would have liked, but even the brief moments of banter quickly endeared me to them.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard – 15 Exclusive Screenshots Captured Using Photo Mode