Chappell Roan’s SNL Look Has Dragon Age Fans Excited
We love Chappell Roan here at Kotaku. The “Good Luck, Babe” singer puts out queer bangers, dresses up in chainmail at award shows, and has cultivated a fanbase of gay nerds who record her shows on Nintendo handhelds. So when she shows up on Saturday Night Live this weekend on November 2, I will be tuned in and seated. But before the show airs, Roan has already appeared in some promotional material for the show, and her outfit has activated Dragon Age fans, as if they aren’t already having a stimulating week after the launch of The Veilguard on Halloween.
Roan is scheduled to be the musical guest for this week’s Saturday Night Live, with stand-up comedian and former SNL writer John Mulaney set to host the show. Both appeared in some promotional videos for the episode, and yeah, Mulaney is there, but Roan’s elaborate outfit is the star of the show. The green and gold outfit features a huge crescent headpiece with gold waist pieces stretching out to the side that seemingly double as armrests. The whole fit is something straight out of a fantasy RPG, and folks in fandoms like Final Fantasy are jumping on the jokes. However, Dragon Age is fresh in everyone’s minds and I, too, had to laugh at how Roan’s outfit is evocative of Ghilan’nain, one of the elven gods the player faces in The Veilguard.
Ghilan’nain is a blighted elf, and without getting too into the weeds, that means her body has been twisted into a monstrous eldritch horror. This lady has multiple sets of arms and tentacles, and her face is hidden under a mask connected to a crescent headpiece. In close-up shots you can see her face is just as horrifying beneath the mask, and why she was so willing to become this monstrosity is part of the story you’ll uncover in The Veilguard. With the headpiece and tendril-like appendages, Roan’s outfit calls to mind the elven god of guides and navigation, so Dragon Age fans are all making the same joke.
Ghilan’nain is nothing like Chappell Roan, though. Is the elven god a queer icon? I mean, not yet, but she could be. But all I’ve ever seen her do is try to kill the queer friend group that is The Veilguard. That’s not very “ally” of her.
The Veilguard Sets Launch Day Steam Record For EA
Long-time fans of the Dragon Age franchise impatiently waited for ten years between the launch of Dragon Age: Inquisition and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Despite the lengthy downtime between entries and the drastic changes in gameplay and art style in the latest release, it appears BioWare didn’t lose its magic touch for the series. It’s been revealed that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is EA’s biggest single-player game launch on Steam to date, outshining even Star Wars Jedi: Survivor last year, which topped charts and broke player records for the publisher.
On launch day, Dragon Age: The Veilguard enjoyed an all-time peak player count of just over 70,000, which is truly impressive for a single-player game. The day after launch—a work day for most people—saw those numbers sitting around 62,000. Now, I know many people will think 70,000 isn’t all that impressive, as it doesn’t break the top ten most-played games on Steam, but it did surpass Baldur’s Gate 3 for a time, which is no small feat. Even more impressive is that, on day one, Dragon Age: The Veilguard outsold Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Steam, pushing the FPS down a spot on the top seller’s leaderboard.
If you spend any amount of time online today, you’ll find plenty of discourse surrounding Dragon Age: The Veilguard. A vocal minority continues downplaying its significance, claiming the Monster Hunter Wilds beta test outperforms the full Dragon Age release. Yeah, it does. But Monster Hunter Wilds is a free-to-play, limited beta. So, obviously it’ll outperform a full-price RPG. We can celebrate both!
So, why is Dragon Age: The Veilguard outperforming EA’s other single-player hits? It’s a well-crafted RPG with action-combat mechanics, impressive world design, perhaps one of the best character creators in the genre, and an expansive storyline spanning nearly 100 hours to complete. Oh, and it’s Steam Deck compatible and doesn’t require the EA App!
If you’re jumping into Dragon Age: The Veilguard this weekend, pay close attention if you want to unlock the game’s secret ending!
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Dead Space And More Are A Bargain During EA’s Halloween Sale
Even with Halloween now in the past, it feels like almost every game under the sun is on some kind of sale for the holiday. Storefronts like Steam, GOG, and PlayStation all have big sales running right now that you can take advantage of. Not to be outdone, EA has joined the club, offering its own bounty of treats in a Steam sale that extends the spooky season fun until November 11.
As this is the Electronic Arts Halloween sale, and you are probably in the mood for something scary, there is no better place to start than 2023’s Dead Space. A top-to-bottom remake of the 2008 modern horror masterpiece that is essentially Resident Evil 4 but in space this time, Dead Space still stands as one of the scariest games you can play. The remake modernizes the horrifying setting of the seemingly abandoned space ship The USG Ishimura to great effect, making the atmosphere even spookier than it was in the original. Dismembering enemies with your plasma cutter remains a satisfying way to take down the zombie-like necromorphs, even if it doesn’t make them any less terrifying to look at. If you like it, the rest of the series is on sale too!
Of course there are plenty of games offering something other than Dead Space’s scares to get as well. Here are some highlights to look out for during the EA Halloween sale.
- Dead Space (2023) – $17.99 (was $59.99)
- Dead Space (2008) – $7.99 (was $19.99)
- Dead Space 2 – $3.99 (was $19.99)
- Dead Space 3 – $3.99 (was $19.99)
- Titanfall 2 – $4.79 (was $29.99)
- Burnout Paradise Remastered – $3.99 (was $19.99)
- Mass Effect Legendary Edition – $8.99 (was $59.99)
- It Takes Two – $13.99 (was $39.99)
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – $7.99 (was $39.99)
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – $24.99 (was $69.99)
- Mirror’s Edge – $4.99 (was $19.99)
If you’re over the Halloween mood, then might I suggest diving into Mass Effect Legendary Edition? This collection of the first three games in the series is a bargain for less than ten bucks and will give you one of the best epics in gaming, full of wonderful characters. Sure, everybody else is currently enjoying BioWare’s latest release, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but you can’t really compete with three games for such a low price.
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The Veilguard’s Most Important Quest Is Missable
Dragon Age: The Veilguard has a ton of side quests throughout its multiple hub worlds, but one stands apart as probably the most important in the game, if not the entirety of BioWare’s fantasy RPG series. If you’re concerned about spoilers, don’t worry, we won’t get into them here. This is just a PSA to everyone playing the game that if you want to see some of the most important story and character work in The Veilguard, you should seek out Solas’ memories in The Crossroads.
These questlines are twofold: First, you’ll find short quests that depict playable flashbacks to the original elven rebellion led by Solas eons before the events of The Veilguard, then you’ll have a debrief about them with your team. Solas, the Inquisition party member who turned out to be the elven god of lies, has existed throughout large swaths of Dragon Age history, and to learn about his history is to understand the past of the fantasy world of Thedas. Each of these quests will end with you collecting a wolf statue to bring back to your home base. Once there, you can view an artistic depiction of one of Solas’ regrets from his time among the elven pantheon. These include some of the biggest lore drops BioWare has ever put in a Dragon Age game, and fundamentally change our understanding of this world.
You can find these memories early on, but there’s a point in the main story quests when a character will give you one of the wolf statues that puts the questline in your journal, complete with waypoints to guide you to where you need to go. Some will require you to fight mini-bosses in and out of The Crossroads, but they are worth the effort. Not only do they provide some of the best story reveals in all of The Veilguard, they’re also required to unlock the game’s secret ending, among other changes to the endgame worth seeking out.
For more on The Veilguard, check out Kotaku’s review.
How To Unlock The Secret Ending
Dragon Age: The Veilguard wraps up a lot of ongoing storylines for fans of BioWare’s fantasy RPG series. But it also has some new threads to pull on, one of which is the focus of the game’s secret post-credits stinger. Unlocking this final revelation is a hefty affair that will span several quest lines. If you want to see everything The Veilguard has to offer, here’s a spoiler-free guide on how to unlock the secret post-credit scene. We’ll go over the requirements first, then we’ll throw up a spoiler warning and talk about what it all means.
How to unlock Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s post-credits ending
One of the lengthy quest lines you’ll have to complete to see The Veilguard’s post-credit scene is tracking down the wolf statues in the Crossroads. These figures unlock some massive lore bombs and backstory about Solas, the elven god at the center of The Veilguard. You’ll find these behind locked areas in the Crossroads, which will often require you to fight a mini-boss or solve a complicated puzzle. Once you’ve found all five, you’ll have a visitor in the Crossroads who will direct you to the final stage of the quest line, which can unlock another choice in the game’s finale. However, that’s not all that’s required to unlock the secret ending.
You’ll also need to find three “Mysterious Circles” hidden around Thedas. These are artifacts that are tucked away in dangerous places that are only accessible after you put in some work. One is in Arlathan Forest and requires you to complete an elaborate laser puzzle that builds a bridge to some ruins surrounded by a lake you can’t swim through.
The other two are hidden behind dragon boss fights. One is in the Necropolis where you recruited Emmrich. The region is home to “The Formless One,” which is a dragon you’ll fight by completing the quests “Restless Spirits” and “Pinnacle of its Kind.” You’ll find one of the Mysterious Circles in the southwest corner of its lair.
The last is perhaps the most involved of the three. This one you’ll find in the lair of a dragon in the Crossroads as part of the quest “The Heart of Corruption.” This requires you to fight three high-level champion mini-bosses throughout the Crossroads who are siphoning power from tears in the Fade. Each champion defeated gives you a key to unlock the dragon’s lair. Once you defeat the beast (a task made easier once you’ve found all five of the wolf statues), you can find the Mysterious Circle stashed away in a hidden passage south of the dragon’s arena.
Then, all you’ve gotta do is reach the end. We won’t dive into The Veilguard’s finale here, but we will dissect the short post-credits scene below. So if you don’t want to know what it entails, skedaddle.
Are they gone?
Okay.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s secret post-credits scene, explained
The brief, one-minute clip you did all that work to unlock has a lot of wide-reaching ramifications for the Dragon Age series. It depicts art of several key events of each game in BioWare’s series, but with cloaked, shadowy figures inserted into them. This includes the Battle of Ostagar in Dragon Age: Origins that led to the loss of most of Ferelden’s Grey Wardens, Bartrand’s stealing of the Lyrium Idol in Dragon Age II and setting off a chain of events that resulted in the Mage-Templar War, and Corypheus’ opening of The Breach in Dragon Age: Inquisition and nearly destroying the world as we know it. The voiceover from a devilish, unknown individual recounts how their group has “balanced” and “guided” the people of Thedas in one way or another, resulting in the events of previous games. To what end? That’s unclear at the moment. But what is clear is that this voice and these shadowy figures are part of the Executors, an enigmatic group that was first hinted at in Dragon Age: Inquisition, then further expanded upon in the anthology book Tevinter Nights.
In Inquisition, you set up several bases throughout the world of Thedas, and eventually, you’ll receive a war table operation that tells you symbols drawn in chalk have started appearing on those bases depicting a downward-pointing triangle covered by two wavy lines. This symbol is shown at the very end of The Veilguard’s post-credits scene as the voiceover says, “We come.” This entire scene seems to imply the Executors have been putting their plans into motion by manipulating characters like Loghain and Bartrand throughout Dragon Age. Whatever they’ve been working toward is finally coming to fruition, and they are coming to Thedas in the near future.
The art we see of Executors in this scene matches the descriptions in Tevinter Nights, which says they are hooded, robed figures. But we also know them to be from “across the sea,” meaning they come from a land beyond Thedas and represent some force we’ve not encountered yet in the Dragon Age series. The codex entries that you receive from the Mysterious Circles imply they could be followers of the Forgotten Ones, the disgraced elven gods who have been mostly erased from history. Given that one of the only known Executor characters was shown opposing Solas in Tevinter Nights, this seems like a possible explanation that could be further explored in a future game, given that The Veilguard takes most of the elven gods we knew of off the board.
Even outside of this secret ending, there are references to some dangerous force from across the sea in The Veilguard, such as when Taash is given a warning about them in their personal quest. Will current hero Rook be the one to fight these forces when they come knocking, or will the next Dragon Age game keep the series’ long-running tradition of bringing in a new protagonist? The Veilguard does end with a Marvel-style “The Veilguard remains vigilant” text right after this revelation which, to me, reads like a subtle implication that Rook might be leading the fight. But hey, Inquisition ended with a much more direct scene that The Inquisitor could face Solas in this game, and that didn’t happen. So we’ll have to wait and see.
Should You Save Minrathous Or Treviso
Many of Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s choices are personal and focus on your team’s relationships and life paths. However, one of the big, world-changing ones comes early on, shortly after you recruit Davrin, the Grey Warden companion. Right now, you might be staring at a choice between helping either the Tevinter city of Minrathous or Treviso, the home base of the Antivan Crows, from coordinated dragon attacks. If you’re unsure of what decision to make and want to know what the results of each option are, we’re here to lay them out for you.
This choice has an impact on your party and your faction allies, as both the Tevinter mage Neve and the Antivan assassin Lucanis are from the affected cities. You’re essentially making a choice on which city and faction will be in a better position to help you when the time comes, and putting Neve or Lucanis on a specific path in their stories and even combat roles. Here’s the rundown of the consequences.
- The person you don’t help will temporarily leave the party
- When they return, they will be considered “hardened,” which locks out parts of their skill tree and makes it harder to progress their relationship without higher approval throughout the game
- You will lose some choice in Neve and Lucanis’ personal storylines, and they will be forced to go down one direction because of the circumstances
- The city you don’t save will be blighted, altering quest lines and dialogue, and cutting off access to the local faction’s shop
- The Shadow Dragons or Antivan Crows will have a baseline loss in allied strength points, meaning it will be impossible to max them out
Overall, it’s still a binary choice that evens itself out, but it will have pretty direct ramifications on your relationship with Neve and Lucanis above all else. It’s still possible to reach the end of their storylines (including having them become a Hero of the Veilguard, which is the equivalent to reaching maximum Loyalty in the Mass Effect series) and make up for the loss in allied power, but it will take more sidequests to make it happen, and you won’t have the shop to sell valuables to in order to juice those numbers.
What I’m unsure of as of this writing is whether or not it locks you out of Neve and Lucanis’ respective romances. I saved Minrathous in my playthrough and my relationship with Lucanis was slow to progress for a bit, so I didn’t see any further options to flirt and eventually locked in my romance with Davrin. We’ll update this guide as that becomes clear.
If you’re reading this guide, you’re probably a decent way into The Veilguard, but if you’d like a few extra tips to help you as you take down the elven gods, we’ve got those, too.