Dragon Age: The Veilguard review round-up — what do the critics say?

The Veilguard is set after 2014’s Inquisition, and it has us playing a custom character called Rook. Along with a bunch of fellow heroes, we have to take on a couple of evil Elven gods who have been unleashed on Thedas, the realm from previous games in the franchise.

It’s made by BioWare, the developer behind Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic. It’s had mixed fortunes of late with underwhelming games like Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda, so how will The Veilguard perform?

Without further ado, let’s find out what reviews are saying about the game.

What is the Metacritic score for Dragon Age: The Veilguard?

The Metacritic score for Dragon Age: The Veilguard is "generally favourable", with a rating of 93 on Xbox Series X/S (based on five reviews), 84 on PS5 (based on 51 reviews) and 80 on PC (based on 23 reviews).

Taking the PS5 score, as that has the most reviews available at the moment, it looks like The Veilguard falls in line with its predecessors, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: Origins, which have scores of 85 and 86 respectively.

All of these ratings are slightly higher than the Xbox 360 score for Dragon Age 2, which sits down at 79.

While the audience score is yet to come, things are looking positive for The Veilguard.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard review round-up

Trawl the internet for Dragon Age: The Veilguard reviews and you’ll find critics waxing lyrically about the game. Scores are mostly high, but what are they actually praising, or criticising? Below we’ve rounded up a selection.

Paul Tassi at Forbes gave the game an 8.5/10 overall and said that he wasn’t a fan of other games in the series, but with The Veilguard he couldn’t wait to play more of it. "It could have used some editing, more gameplay complexity and maybe some sharper writing in parts, but it did many things well and I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit."

IGN’s Simon Cardy said in his 9/10 review that the game’s level design was one of the first things to jump out at him, reminding the writer of the original Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game.

"The slick, looping corridors with just enough little nooks to discover are cleverly interconnected in a way that proves how a BioWare-style RPG gains a lot and loses almost nothing by ditching the idea of a fully open world," he wrote.

Meanwhile, over at Eurogamer, associate editor Robert Purchase rated the game five stars, calling it the "best BioWare game I have ever played". In his review, he praised the game’s finale: "The ending of the game is an all-timer; it left my jaw on the floor. It trumps anything BioWare has done before."

It’s not all perfect scores, though, as The Guardian’s Malindy Hetfeld only rated it three out of five (which is still fairly good), acknowledging that while it’s not a bad game, she had an issue with the writing style. "But the writing, the heart of previous games, is surprisingly mediocre, while the new combat style gets repetitive fairly quickly," she said.

Over at Video Games Chronicle, it’s a similar response from reviewer Jordan Middler in his three-star write up. He wrote: "Unfortunately, Veilguard’s main missions make for an uneven experience, swinging from incredible set pieces to frustrating slogs."

What will you make of Dragon Age: The Veilguard? There are only a couple of days to go now until it is released!

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