Discover the Ultimate FRUITY BONANZA: 10 Refreshing Recipes for Every Season

The moment I first saw the trailer for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I’ll admit I was excited—almost unreasonably so. There’s something about that franchise that feels like coming home, especially if you’ve spent hundreds of hours across Origins, II, and Inquisition. But now, after sinking close to 50 hours into The Veilguard, I’m left with a strange hollowness, a feeling that something vital is missing. It’s a bit like craving a fruity bonanza—one of those vibrant, layered fruit salads bursting with seasonal flavors—only to be handed a bowl of chopped apples and told it’s a gourmet experience. You keep eating, waiting for the complexity to kick in, but it never quite does. That’s Rook, the new protagonist, in a nutshell: underwhelming, out of sync, and lacking the narrative zest that made past heroes unforgettable.

Let’s rewind a little. Dragon Age has always thrived on anthology-style storytelling. Each game introduces a new hero, a fresh perspective, a different corner of Thedas to save. On paper, that sounds fantastic—variety, novelty, endless possibilities. But here’s the catch: when you reset the protagonist with every installment, you risk losing emotional continuity. Inquisition handled this beautifully. The Inquisitor wasn’t just some random person handed a fancy title. They were literally marked by destiny, wielding the Anchor—a power no one else had—to close the Breach and face Corypheus. You felt the weight of that role, the inevitability of it. By contrast, Rook’s introduction feels almost lazy. The leader of the Veilguard basically points and says, “You’re the one,” with zero compelling justification. No unique abilities, no deep-seated lore reasons, no tangible stakes that scream, “This has to be Rook.” I found myself pausing the game multiple times, thinking, “Why am I even here?” And when your player character feels like a placeholder, it’s hard to stay invested.

What’s particularly frustrating is how much of The Veilguard’s plot comes across as a direct sequel to the Inquisitor’s journey—just with someone else awkwardly shoved into the spotlight. There are moments, especially in the first 10 to 15 hours, where the story leans heavily on events and characters from Inquisition. You half-expect the Inquisitor to walk in and take over, because frankly, they’d fit better. Rook, by comparison, often reacts instead of acts, observes instead of influences. In my playthrough, I kept a rough tally: about 70% of critical story beats were explained or driven by NPCs, not Rook. That’s a stark departure from, say, Hawke in Dragon Age II, who—despite the game’s flaws—felt central to every conflict in Kirkwall. Here, the narrative doesn’t just bend around Rook; it often ignores them entirely, and the immersion suffers for it.

Now, I don’t want to sound like I’m piling on hate. The Veilguard does many things well—the combat is fluid, the side quests are engaging, and the world-building remains rich. But a weak protagonist can undermine even the strongest foundations. Think back to the “fruity bonanza” idea: if one ingredient is bland, the whole dish suffers. Rook is that bland ingredient. They lack the compelling backstory of the Warden, the personal stakes of Hawke, or the mythic resonance of the Inquisitor. Previous protagonists had clear, urgent reasons to step up. The Warden was part of an ancient order fighting the Blight. Hawke was trying to protect their family and survive the chaos of a city tearing itself apart. The Inquisitor was literally the only person who could seal rifts in the sky. Rook? Rook is just… there. And in a genre where player agency and identity are everything, “just being there” isn’t enough.

I’ve talked to other players, browsed forums, and the sentiment is eerily consistent: Rook doesn’t feel like they belong in this story. Some have speculated that the character was a late addition, or that the writers struggled to integrate them into a plot that clearly wanted to follow up on Inquisition’s threads. Whatever the reason, the result is a protagonist who fails to command the narrative. There’s one moment about halfway through the game—I won’t spoil it—where a major decision falls to Rook, and instead of feeling empowered, I felt confused. Why is my character making this choice? What personal connection do they have to this conflict? The game doesn’t provide satisfying answers. It’s a stark reminder that, in RPGs, the “why” is just as important as the “what.”

So where does that leave us? The Veilguard is by no means a bad game. It’s polished, ambitious, and visually stunning. But it’s also a cautionary tale about the risks of anthology storytelling without careful character integration. When you ask players to invest dozens of hours into a new hero, that hero needs to feel essential—not incidental. Rook, unfortunately, feels like the latter. As I wrapped up my playthrough, I couldn’t help but imagine how much more impactful the story would have been with the Inquisitor—or any protagonist with deeper ties to the events at hand—leading the charge. Maybe in the next installment, BioWare will rediscover that magic. For now, The Veilguard stands as a beautiful but flawed entry in a series I still deeply love. And if you’re diving in, maybe lower your expectations for the protagonist—and focus instead on the world, the side characters, and those moments of pure Dragon Age brilliance that still shine through.