Dragon Age: The Veilguard may end up standing the test of time as one of the best RPGs to come from BioWare yet, with various quality-of-life improvements over the series’ past entries.
Speaking in a Q&A on Discord, The Veilguard’s lead developers dive into some of these – and from mid-cutscene pausing to skill point respecs, there’s a lot to look forward to. As creative director John Epler explains, “life happens” – so players should be able to comfortably leave and pick back up as needed.
“You can pause every cutscene in the game,” he reveals. “Obviously, life happens … my cat might be throwing up in the next room and I need to find a way to get her off the carpet and onto, you know, not the carpet – so you can pause any cutscene and conversation.” Sadly, the game doesn’t have any dialogue history to look back to – but with pausing, there’s less of a need to do so anyway. That’s not the only quality-of-life feature mentioned, either.
Players can comfortably experiment with builds and skill point configurations as they can respec – all at no cost, according to director Corinne Busche. “Refund all [at] no cost. It’s an entirely friendly refund system. Go experiment, and then let me know what you do.” Busche describes how you can “respect at any time,” so “you might be a Death Caller one moment and another specialization on the next encounter.”
For all of us fashion-first fans, The Veilguard features an expansive transmog system. “Y’all know, fashion’s the true end game,” jokes Busche. “Any piece of gear you find is also going to unlock the appearance for that gear” – so at any point while you’re playing, you can swap the way that your equipped gear looks to any other piece you’ve found previously. “You’ll also find some appearance-only cosmetics that are specifically used just for transmog.”
I can’t wait to assemble fancy fits myself and explore some of these quality-of-life additions in-depth, and I’m not alone. A recent Reddit thread shares fans’ reactions to the Q&A, and the hype for the “fantastic” features in The Veilguard is real. “I think I speak for all dog owners that being able to pause cutscenes is the most exciting info,” reads one comment. Another fan calls the ability to respec “the single biggest” revelation.
“I legit restarted whole 30-hour DAI playthroughs multiple times because I wasn’t liking a certain spec or just wanted to try something new,” they write. Elsewhere, someone shares a similar sentiment: “I’d rather not have to backup a save or create another character if I want to try another build.” Responses to the Q&A also mention transmogs in The Veilguard, too – my own personal highlight. “The freedom of armor looks with a transmog system is amazing!”
Dragon Age: The Veilguard has Baldur’s Gate 3-style nudity toggles and customizable underwear
