Dragon Age has a ton of different customization options. In the character creator alone, there are hundreds of options to customize things like hair, body type, what your playable character Rook’s face looks like, and much more. There are also a ton of armor options.
Companions have an armor slot, a ring slot, an accessory slot, and a weapon slot, while Rook has access to even more – a helmet, two weapon slots, a belt, an amulet slot, and two ring slots. A belt with its own slot may sound odd, as it’s not an armor piece people typically think of when equipping an RPG warrior. However, the belt is an important aspect of Rook’s kit. The better Rook’s belt, the better the potency of their healing potions, which are replenished by destroying green pots scattered throughout the world. That’s not all, though, as higher quality belts can proc [editor’s note: proc is a term used as a shorter way of saying “programmed random occurrence”] additional effects such as temporary invulnerability.
When creating your character, you can immediately preview aspiration armor, which won’t come into play for Rook’s class until the “mid-to-late game,” according to game director Corinne Busche. You can also toggle Rook’s starting gear and casual wear on and off in the creator, giving you a pretty good idea of how Rook will look in more relaxed cutscenes, in combat, and how they might look later in your Veilguard journey. Busche tells me that a lot of the gear in Veilguard is tailor-made for your Rook or their followers, meaning that an armor piece made for a Warrior-class Rook probably won’t be in a chest for a Mage-class Rook. Similarly, armor designed for the companion Bellara Lutara can’t be used on another companion, like Lace Harding.
In just a few hours, I watched Busche play the game as part of my visit to BioWare’s Edmonton office for our current Game Informer cover story, I see a lot of armor to collect from things like chests scattered around Arlathan Forest, for example, and elsewhere. Some of it looks great, and some of it doesn’t quite fit my personal taste. That’s the way it goes in the RPG genre.
However, Busche tells me that there is transmogrification, or transmog for short, in the game, which he calls “robust.” What this means is that you can take the stats of one piece of armor and apply them to another piece of armor. In other words, if you have a really cool piece of armor that you like and find a new piece with better stats, but you don’t want to give up the look of your current armor, you don’t have to. Transmog allows you to take the stats of that new armor and apply them to your current armor, giving you all the benefits while retaining the visual style that you prefer.
Transmog isn’t just for Rook, though; you can also transmog armor and other items for your companions. I didn’t get to see how Veilguard’s transmog system works in-game, but just knowing it exists gives me peace of mind knowing my Rook is looking as fashionable as possible while saving Thedas.
For more information on the game, including exclusive details, interviews, video features, and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below.