Veilguard's equipment, construction art is cut across the series' past

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BioWare's triumphant return to Dragon Age series with Dragon Age: The Veilguard is finally here after what seems like an eternity, and the title is already turning heads thanks to how it both honors and develops the series' legacy. In the decade since the launch of the series' latest title, Dragon Age: Inquisitionthe RPG landscape has changed a lot, leaving many wondering how Dragon Age: The Veilguard stacking up against more contemporary titles that have moved the needle forward. An element that Veilguard surprising with is its astonishing amount of depth and variety in buildcrafting, which is only further enhanced by the game's approach to equipment.




Every entry in BioWare's Dragon Age series has featured slightly different gear and upgrade mechanics, with Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels like a natural endpoint for the franchise to land. In addition to acquiring more equipment, players now have a streamlined system that they can use to upgrade weapons and armor, unlocking valuable passive abilities that serve to enhance already powerful skills and synergies between party members. Combined with the new approach to classes and specializations, Dragon Age: The Veilguard gives players more freedom of expression than any other game in the series.

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Dragon Age: The Veilguard has moments pulled straight out of a horror film

While still a fantasy game at heart, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is filled with terrifying moments that wouldn't be out of place in a horror movie.

How Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Gear Upgrade System trades complexity for utility


Each entry in the Dragon Age The series has taken its own approach to how players acquire new equipment and enhance it through upgrading or enchantment, culminating in the series reaching its highest levels of complexity with Dragon Age: Inquisition. Inquisition gave players less equipment to explore in the world in favor of guiding them towards using the game's deep and, in some ways, unnecessarily complicated crafting and upgrade system. The trade-off for that complexity is that players could craft some truly powerful weapons and armor by engaging with the system and adapting to its learning curve. The craftsman losing some of Inquisitions complexity and customization, but it provides greater usability and ease of use as a result.


The basis for The craftsmans equipment and upgrade system is the increased amount of equipment players find in the world, with every branching path and hidden nook worth searching in the hope of stumbling upon a treasure chest containing a new piece of kit. But that's only the tip of the iceberg, as the impressive amount and variety of equipment players acquire is now more easily upgraded with both faction-specific vendors and the Caretaker's bench in the lighthouse. Each gear has a clear upgrade path with at least 2 unlockable passives catering to either specific abilities or a particular class specialization, and the process of upgrading them is as simple as having the right faction rank or required resources.

The New Approach to Gear in Dragon Age: Veilguard is a perfect fit for its Buildcraft


As for their classes, Dragon Age: The Veilguard sticks to the series' established formula by starting players with a choice between the classic Warrior, Rogue, or Mage archetypes. But the new divergent paths for each of these classes to take via the different specializations available gives players a lot of freedom in how they build their hero, complete with plenty of opportunities to mix and match abilities from different specializations to create custom subclasses that follows unofficial playstyles such as a paladin or spellblade. The cornerstone in bringing out the best Veilguards build variation is its equipment and upgrade system.

By paying attention to the various passive abilities that players unlock by upgrading specific gear, it is possible to build up these abilities, change the equipment and character development of Dragon Age: The Veilguard to something more similar Diablo 4. Although none of the abilities that come from upgrading gear are individually as game-changing as aspects in Diablo 4they give players an end goal for how they might want to develop their characters, while making it easier than ever to upgrade and equip that gear.


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