Do you need to play previous Dragon Age games before The Veilguard?

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is looking like one of the hottest releases of the fall. After a slightly concerning reveal cinematic, BioWare started showing us some real gameplay that revived our hopes for this fantasy RPG. It promises a big world to explore, a cast of colorful characters to meet and interact with, classes to experiment with, and tons of choices that will impact the story. But this isn’t the start of a new story even though we’re playing as a new character.

Technically, The Veilguard is the fourth Dragon Age game after Origins, 2, and Inquisition—clearly, BioWare isn’t too fond of a consistent naming convention. Regardless, no one wants to jump into a sequel without knowing everything that happened prior, right? But since it has been 10 years since the last game, and it would take hundreds of hours for someone to play through all three of them, is BioWare assuming you’ve played all the previous games before The Veilguard, or can you jump in here as a good starting point? I’ll help you prepare before the game drops this Halloween.

Do you need to play previous Dragon Age games before The Veilguard?

Playing all three would be a huge undertaking

There are two ways to approach this question, with the first being what the developers state. In an interview with Game Informer, Creative Director John Epler stated “One of the things we wanted to make sure with Veilguard is that it’s respectful and referential to previous games without feeling like you needed to have played Inquisition, or [Dragon Age 2] or [Dragon Age: Origins] to understand what’s going on.”

“While there are references,” Epler continued, “there are moments that we have callbacks, it really is its own story, its own continuation with a different cast, with different characters. Historically Dragon Age always has had a different cast per game, so that gives us a lot of freedom in terms of what we want to lean on in the past, and what we want to bring in that’s new and forward-facing.”

That implies that the team intends for The Veilguard to primarily stand on its own without depending on knowledge from past games. Those who are familiar with the lore and history should get more out of it, but it isn’t a requirement.

What about choices carrying over from previous Dragon Age games?

Your choices did matter, but you can make them again

The other way to answer this question is regarding any choices made in previous games. Just like Mass Effect, the Dragon Age games carry over certain choices made in past games to influence some aspects of the next. Fortunately, every player will get the chance to make these impactful choices during the character creator, which should also help bring newcomers up to speed on the state of the world and prior events.

In both scenarios, you do not need to play any Dragon Age game to enjoy The Veilguard. Any vital information or characters will be introduced and explained to you without expecting any prior knowledge. That said, you will likely have a greater experience if you have played previous games and recognize returning characters, locations, or events. It is up to you if you have the time, access, and desire to hunt these older games down to play them before October 31.