Dragon Age offers a wide range of customization options. Within the character creator alone, there are hundreds of options to customize the hair, body type, and facial features of your playable character Rook. There are also numerous armor options.
While companions have armor slots, ring slots, accessory slots, and weapon slots, Rooks have access to more slots, including a helmet, two weapon slots, a belt, an amulet slot, and two ring slots. Having a slot on a belt may sound odd, as it’s not the type of armor you usually think of when outfitting an RPG warrior. However, belts are an important aspect of a Rook’s kit. The better the Rook’s belt, the more effective the healing potions are, which are replenished by destroying green jars scattered around the world. But that’s not all. A high-quality belt (Editor’s Note: proc is short for “programmed random generation” and refers to additional effects such as momentary invincibility.
When creating a character, you’ll immediately see aspirational armor that doesn’t apply to Rook’s class until “mid to late game,” according to game director Corin Boucher. You’ll also be able to switch between Rook’s starting gear and casual wear in the creator, giving you a pretty good look at how Rook will look in laid-back cutscenes, combat, and later on in his Veilguard journey. Boucher says that a lot of the Veilguard gear is tailored to Rook or his followers, meaning that Warrior class Rook’s armor won’t come in a Mage class Rook’s chest. Likewise, armor designed for companion Bellara Lutara won’t work on other companions, like Lace Harding.
It only took a few hours for me to visit BioWare’s Edmonton offices and watch Busche play the game. Game Informer In the cover story, for example, we see a lot of armor pieces that can be collected from things like chests scattered throughout Arlathan Forest and other places. Some of them look cool, some of them don’t really fit my personal taste. That’s how it is in the RPG genre.
But Busche says the game has transmogrification, or transmog for short, and he calls it “robust.” That means you can take the stats of a piece of armor and apply them to another piece of armor. In other words, if you have a really cool piece of armor and you want to find a new piece with better stats, but you don’t want to give up the look of your current piece, you don’t have to. With transmog, you can take the stats of a new piece of armor and apply them to your current piece, giving you all the benefits while maintaining your preferred visual style.
But Transmog isn’t just for looks. You can also transmog your companions’ armor and other items. While we can’t see how the Veilguard’s Transmog system works in-game, the mere fact that it exists gives you peace of mind knowing that your looks will be as stylish as possible while you save Thedas.
For more information on the game, exclusive details, interviews, video features, and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below.
