Highlights

  • Dragon Age: The Veilguard will have at least four difficulty settings: Storyteller, Adventurer, Nightmare, and Unbound.
  • The Unbound mode will serve as the game's custom difficulty, offering granular controls for fine-tuning one's experience.
  • These custom settings will even include a no-death toggle, although BioWare insists that this option shouldn't be considered a cheat.

BioWare has revealed the difficulty settings of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The upcoming RPG will have four levels of difficulty, which use some new terminology but otherwise seem to be fairly close to those from the previous entries in the Dragon Age franchise, with one notable exception.

The fourth mainline installment in the long-running series received its long-awaited gameplay reveal back in mid-June 2024. That occasion also saw BioWare detail some of its many mechanics and confirm that Dragon Age: The Veilguard will offer multiple difficulty settings affecting its combat.

Dragon Age The Veilguard trio of characters behind game logo partially purple image edit
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard Will Feature At Least 4 Difficulty Settings, Including a Custom One

The developer has now elaborated on what those options will actually entail, having done so during Game Informer's recent visit to its Edmonton offices. The studio tour included some hands-on time with a development build of the game, which included four difficulty settings: Storyteller, Adventurer, Nightmare, and Unbound. The Nightmare option has been a long-time series staple, having appeared in all previous Dragon Age games. Meanwhile, the Storyteller and Adventurer settings appear to be the equivalents of the past entries' Casual and Normal difficulties, respectively.

New terminology aside, the biggest novelty included in the newly detailed options is the Unbound setting, which BioWare describes as a custom difficulty mode offering granular control over the player's experience. This series first won't just allow for fine-tuning different damage and defense multipliers in combat, but also let players enable aim assist, adjust the duration of parrying windows, and even make use of "wayfinding" options meant to streamline the process of navigating Dragon Age: The Veilguard's world.

All Confirmed Dragon Age: The Veilguard Difficulty Settings

  • Storyteller (Casual equivalent)
  • Adventurer (Normal equivalent)
  • Nightmare (same as the previous games)
  • Unbound (custom difficulty)

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Will Have a No-Death Option

Another Unbound setting governs something described as "enemy pressure," which sounds like it will affect the overall level of aggression that Dragon Age: The Veilguard's enemies exhibit toward the player. Rounding off this selection of custom settings is a self-explanatory no-death toggle. While that particular option seems like developer-sanctioned god mode, BioWare Game Director Corinne Busche insists that none of the Unbound settings should be considered as cheats. Instead, the studio opted to include them in order to make the game maximally accessible, thus allowing "players of all abilities" to enjoy it.

The upcoming RPG promises to offer even more accessibility options that are yet to be revealed. One thing that's missing from the newly confirmed list of settings is the equivalent of the Hard difficulty option that was present in the previous three mainline games. Whether this setting will be present in the final version of Dragon Age: The Veilguard is currently unclear. On the other hand, what's certain is that players will be able to change the game's difficulty at any time during their playthrough, unless they pick the Nightmare one, with BioWare just confirming as much.