Dragon Age: The Veilguard's skill trees might've twisted my node-loving, build-tinkering sicko arm just enough to get me excited about playing it

Dragon Age: Th Veilguard - Davrin crouches down to speak to a griffin

(Image credit: BioWare, Electronic Arts)

Dragon Age: The Veilguard hasn't exactly inspired much confidence in me so far—and there's been an even more turbulent reaction from the PC Gamer team writ large. Some of us are cautiously optimistic, growing more so the further glimpses we get, while others are digging our heels in. I think I heard something about a 'battle to the death' the other day. It's rough out here.

I've been teetering between 'this'll probably be serviceable' and 'they said what about the previous games?' myself, and while the snippets of writing we've seen so far have been a complete whiff in my opinion, Bioware's latest deep dives into the RPG mechanics have hit me in my node-loving, build-tinkering, talent-tree rotting brain and, dangit, okay. I'm interested. You can watch a summary below—there's also a blog post on the subject.

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Obviously, we don't know how restrictive or liberating these skill trees will be until we get there—and Veilguard is still absolutely looking more action than RPG at this point. However, what I'm seeing here presents a level of complexity far above what I expected.

The UI, overall, does smack of live service grot, but beyond my own aesthetic preferences? I don't think it's reasonable to come down hard on a game just because its menus have that Destiny 2 whiff about them—I'm a big boy, I can get over that. What really has me intrigued is how, according to the dive, you get skill points every level (with a maximum of 50), meaning you'll actually be able to get a good spread going, here.

Seeing a straight beeline towards one of the three specialisations (Rogue, for instance, has Duelist, Saboteur, and Veil Ranger) had me worried at first, but you unlock these things at level 20, which means you'll still be able to have a nice roam up and down the skill tree like a squirrel spreading gossip with 30 points to spare.

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Examples of skill trees featured in the upcoming RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard. — (Image credit: EA / Bioware)

I'm still testy about the console-oriented, quick-pause selection nonsense that'll probably have me playing this game with a controller—but at the very least, it seems like the distinction between traits (moves that are triggered under certain circumstances, like parrying) and abilities (buttons you deliberately hit to do the thing) will mean the classes play distinctly between each other.

You also get Ultimates, which are a hair too 'hero shooter' for my taste, but the Murder of Crows attack does look sick. I'm not snooty enough to pretend I'm above the cool factor of 'vanish and slash a bunch of mooks in a big circle'. If it spikes my dopamine right, I'm on board—and I can just… squint my eyes and pretend it's a Limit Break, or something.

Your companions have smaller (boo) trees that nonetheless look interesting, and there's a whole item upgrades system to help bolster, with qualities that do look a lot more interesting than "+5% damage to enemies with shields". All in all? Not a bad showing, Veilguard. While I'm still lukewarm on the dialogue and presentation we've seen thus far, there's every chance I'll have a blast building out my little quipper, bare minimum.

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Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.