Dragon Age: The Veilguard Consoles Deliver a Visually Impressive Technical Experience

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.

Impressive Visuals and Lighting
The game features a strand-based hair system, which provides an impressive combination of refined hair detail with realistic movement and flow. The developers have taken and adapted Frostbite’s hair system here, which provides an original and distinct visual experience.

Character Creator and Customization
The game’s character creator 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. The stylisation is likely to be a little controversial, but it did grow on the author over the course of their gameplay.

Performance and Image Quality

The game has two visual modes: fidelity mode and performance mode. Fidelity mode runs at 1080p, while performance mode runs at 720p. The game uses a customized version of FSR 2.2 to bring the game to higher resolutions. The fidelity mode is cleaner overall, but the performance mode’s doubled refresh helps to keep disocclusion issues to a minimum.

Ray Tracing and Lighting
The game features RT reflections and RT ambient occlusion, which are featured in the fidelity mode exclusively. The RT reflections can make a big difference in some scenes, adding a level of depth and lighting accuracy to a scene that can’t be replicated with cubemaps or SSR.

Console Performance

The game delivers a solid technical experience on current-gen console hardware. The fidelity mode is a locked 30fps, while the performance mode is mostly a 60fps experience. However, it does struggle slightly with periodic frame-rate drops. The Xbox Series S has a more compromised image at a less stable 60fps in performance mode, while the fidelity mode offers more reasonable image quality at a consistent 30fps.

Conclusion
Dragon Age fans will not be disappointed with Veilguard, and console gamers will also be pleased. The game looks great and plays well, delivering a solid technical experience on current-gen console