Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s character creator hit me right in the feels

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has a lot of rewards for fans of Dragon Age: Inquisition which has endured the decade-long wait between the two games. And the first one that pops up will be the chance to recreate your version of Inquisition‘s player rating for their performance in Veil guard.

As one of these patient fans, I have spent 10 years warmed by memories of my adventures in Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s no surprise that sitting down to build my Inquisitor would create a wave of emotion for this character and the story I created for them a decade ago – after all, it’s the traditional emotional hook that the best BioWare games excel at.

But it wasn’t just nostalgia that had me in the mood as I customized my Inquisitor’s hair, face, and background details: It was the idea that even though she might not be a main character anymore, her story was still ongoing. I was almost 30 when I played Inquisitionand now I’m almost 40. But my inquisitor is also 10 years older, according to when Veil guard is set – and hell, Inquisitor Haleth Lavellan, Herald of Andraste and Comtesse of Kirkwall, is still in the game. Literally, yes – but more importantly, metaphorically.

The classic heroic story is a province of young and untried adventurers, especially in the RPG style with high-fantasy yarns that abound in games. And the story of the epic hero tries to end at Happily Ever After, usually the moment the mission’s goal is achieved, because that’s where all the narrative tension and catharsis is. It makes sense! (There are plenty of exceptions to this, but they are just that: exceptions.)

But RPGs can also be a great place to explore lifelong adventures, not just The One Strange Summer I Had a Tadpole in My Head. And in some ways I made myself have a lot of feelings about older heroes and legacies when I started up Veil guard by playing a game that is expressly sore that just before. I bridged my pre-Veil guard replay of Inquisition and actually plays Veil guard (courtesy of early code from BioWare) by dipping into Worldwalker Games’ Wild myth.

Wild myth is a tactical RPG where you play a series of procedurally generated adventures with procedurally generated (and largely customizable) teams of heroes. You follow each hero from a brave and inexperienced adventurer through the ups and downs of a unique story designed to have the feel of a long-running fantasy tabletop campaign. You see your characters experience victory, loss, transformation and for some even love, children and retirement in old age. Then, when their story is done, you can start a new arc with a new threat and build a group that’s a mix of new adventurers, veteran characters from your last game, and even the kids on your old team.

I was still thinking about how much the old mechanics had loved me Wild myth‘s relatively thin grades when I started up Dragon Age: The Veilguard and started making my inquisitor. This isn’t the first time Dragon Age has let you build your old PC so they can appear in a new game — Inquisition surprises you with a mid-game trip to the character creator to make your own Hawke, the player character Dragon Age 2. But with Hawke, you pick them up only a year or so after the uncertain end of their game. There’s no gap there, no invitation to consider how it’s been 10 years since the Inquisitor stepped out of the rift and reunited the fractured nations of southern Thedas… and yet their story isn’t over.

When I and the other players in my decade-long tabletop campaign put our heads together about our characters, a frequent topic of daydreaming is imagining the lives they will live after we’re closing the book on the campaign (psst, don’t tell our GM, the story isn’t over yet). Now, part of this is definitely showing our age: we’re all about 40, and we’ve played characters in the classic fantasy protagonist age range of about 20-something. 30 all the time. We know there is much more life on the other side of that divide, and we wish that for them too.

But while I respect and support my friends who are determined that their character will settle down and settle down, I yearn for something else. I want to know that there are more adventures in her future. With the inquisitor, Dragon Age: The Veilguard gives it to me. There was an end to the story of the Inquisition, but the Inquisitor is still here and taking action. (What kind of moves? I had to play the game to find out.)

In the character creator, I did my best to replicate my Inquisitor’s face (or at least how she might be designed in Veil guard‘s smoother art style), but I also made a lot of deliberate changes. More weathered skin, more gray hair and a different haircut – no more braids, she works with a prosthetic hand now and although she could get someone to do it for her, I see her as wanting more independence. I nailed down her crucial decisions about the Inquisition and her romantic partner (the man every twisted human noble at the twisted human ball wanted to beat) and I chose her voice, the low British tones of actress Alix Wilton Regan.

I am intimately familiar with Regan’s voice after all the hours I poured into it Inquisitionbut I hit the voice test button anyway, for kicks. “It’s good to see you again,” said my inquisitor.

It was a cheap shot, BioWare, but it worked. The is good to see my inquisitor again, and it’s good news for all those on the other side of the untested Fantasy Hero age to see that she still has a hand in (no pun intended) the state of Thedas.