Here’s How The Mage Will Play In Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is taking a more action-oriented approach to combat than its predecessors. Early footage shows the sequel looking like it borders on a character action game, so as someone who plays a mage in every single one of these games, I was curious how The Veilguard was going to adapt the spell-slinging class for that style of play. We now have our first look at the class in action, and it looks pretty sick.

The footage comes from an NVIDIA tech showcase trailer meant to show The Veilguard’s impressive ray tracing. Y’all tech nerds can enjoy that, but I’m more concerned with how the mage class operates in the more action-driven combat. Dragon Age II and Inquisition were certainly closer to full-blown action RPGs, but they still leaned at least somewhat into the original Origins’ tactical roots. The Veilguard has pivoted away from them entirely, and just how that would impact mages has been one of the biggest question marks hanging over the game. Now we see a mage Rook (the player character) using a staff, capable of both close-range combat and long-range spells. The mage seems to have a few tricks up their sleeve, with a close-range slam ability, what looks like a beam of green Fade-like magic to pester enemies from afar, and more powerful energy spells that can strike multiple enemies at once.

The standard attack has you flicking your staff as you fire nondescript damage spells, but according to BioWare executive producer Michael Gamble, mage players will also be able to use an orb or dagger as their primary weapon instead of a staff. So it sounds like even this trailer is only showing off one way to play the mage. Check out the video below:

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is coming to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on October 31. Fans have been waiting for nearly a decade for the game, as it will finally pick up where Dragon Age: Inquisition left off in 2015 with its Trespasser DLC. If you’ve never played the games, there’s still time to get caught up if you want to play just the most important stuff.