Dragon Age: The Veilguard on consoles is an attractive, technically solid release

After a decade of development and project restarts, the latest Dragon Age is finally here. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a direct sequel to 2014’s Inquisition, and uses a dramatic evolution of that game’s Frostbite technology, featuring ray tracing techniques and current-gen exclusivity. We’ve already covered the PC version and came away impressed with how the new release scales across a range of hardware, but where does that leave the consoles – especially the four teraflop Xbox Series S? And how have the game’s ray tracing settings been adapted for console play?

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a great-looking game. I wasn’t all that taken by early previews, but with the game actually in hand I think it’s clearly a very handsome title. There are some really beautiful environments here, with abundant foliage and attractive lighting. It’s not necessarily going to stand toe-to-toe with this generation’s top tier in terms of reflections or diffuse global illumination quality, but the overall image is impressive.

One element that highlights the experience is the game’s strand-based hair system. The developers have taken and adapted Frostbite’s hair system here (as seen in the FIFA/FC games) which provides an impressive combination of refined hair detail with realistic movement and flow. In virtually any gameplay or cutscene situation, my character’s long curled locks produced a visually satisfying result with minimal clipping – and that applies to essentially all the hair featured in the game, regardless of length or texture. It may seem odd to focus on the hair rendering first and foremost – but it’s a striking feature that is original and distinct.

That hair is featured quite nicely in the game’s character creator, which provides a lot of options for character designs without feeling overwhelming. The rounded-off, exaggerated features ensure the characters don’t dip into the uncanny valley. It’s a little more guided than creating a character in a Bethesda game, but I feel like it provides a similar level of flexibility – and of course it’s easy to skip through if you just don’t care. Veilguard’s stylisation is likely to be a little controversial, as the cartoonish faces do stick out slightly, but it did grow on me over the course of my gameplay.