Bioware get their mojo back with new Dragon Age, writes PETER HOSKIN

Dragon Age: The Veilguard (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £69.99)

Verdict: A most welcome return

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OH, HOW the mighty have fallen. Once — thanks to releases such as Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic and the original Mass Effect trilogy — game developers BioWare seemed unbeatable.

Then, thanks to more questionable releases (Mass Effect: Andromeda, Anthem) they were left in the mud; a sorry tale.

Surely they couldn’t pick themselves up by returning to their fantasy RPG series, Dragon Age, a whole decade after the previous entry? And just a year after Baldur’s Gate 3 set a (very) high bar for the whole genre? Well, I’m happy to say: oh, how the fallen have become mighty again.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a triumph. Its new hero, Rook, has to recruit a bunch of old favourites to save the continent of Thedas from a pair of corrupt, rampaging elven gods — but, in doing so, he manages to save BioWare itself. It has to be said, though, that Veilguard is no Baldur’s Gate 3. Where that game was a feast of complicated choices, actions and characters, this one is more a platter of sweet snacks.

Its world of golden forests and ichorous monsters is as stunning as any I’ve seen on screen. Its mission-based plotting is fast-paced and compulsive. Its combat is heavy on button presses and pyrotechnics. Which may make Veilguard sound like empty calories. Unfilling.

But just wait until you reach the ending. This is masterful, moving storytelling for Dragon Age veterans and newcomers alike. BioWare are back.

Life Is Strange: Double Exposure (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £49.99)

Verdict: Strange is good

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IS THERE a more delightful formula in gaming than that hit upon by the Life Is Strange series?Since the original game was released in 2015, there’s been a steady stream of new titles all offering basically the same thing: choose-your-own-adventure-style narratives in which artfully angsty teenagers uncover dark secrets in one of the quainter, more picturesque corners of America.

The teens tend to have both great knitwear collections and superheroic powers, like the ability to rewind time, or to see people’s emotions.

But, really, they — and you — progress through the story thanks to the greatest power of all, the power of conversation. And friendship and love and all that. They’re remarkably warm experiences.

And now there’s another, Life Is Strange: Double Exposure, which, in some ways, takes us back to the beginning.

The protagonist is the same as the early games: the likeable, time-skipping Max Caulfield. Except she’s a teen no longer — she’s in her twenties and has moved to Vermont to teach photography at a university.

Everything is all cosy and cuddly... until one of Max’s new friends, Safi, is killed on campus. Who would do such a thing? And why?Max’s greater maturity reflects the game’s greater maturity. Not only are her powers more impressive this time — she now hops between two different timelines, the one in which Safi is dead and one in which she is still alive, in order to solve her murder — but so, too, is the storytelling. There is much reflection on the past, on memory and on grief.

Which brings a certain sense of joy: the Life Is Strange series generally keeps on getting better. Let’s let these chemists keep on perfecting the formula.

Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 (PlayStation, Xbox, PC, £69.99)

Verdict: Covert and cosy

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THE Call Of Duty games often blur into one. Every year, there’s a new offering of what seem to be same old things. The same precise, pummelling gunplay. The same bombastic, cinematic storytelling. The same relentless expansion of the ruthlessly monetised multiplayer side of things.

This series is the best there is at what it does. But what it does tends to be incremental, at best.

Except this year’s offering, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6, actually manages to stand out. And I’m not entirely sure why.

It’s got all of the qualities listed above, but there’s also a certain... something else.

Perhaps it’s the endearing (not an adjective you’d generally apply to Call Of Duty) nature of its single-player campaign, which is where I’ve spent most of my time. It casts you as a faceless operative, sometime in the early 1990s, on a mission to uncover a shady militia who may or may not have plans for world domination, and ties to the CIA.

Which sounds like a Tom Clancy thriller — and in some ways it is — but there’s also a welcome touch of soap opera.

Throughout the campaign, you build friendships with a bunch of other muscled mavericks. You and they hang out at a safe house in Bulgaria, chatting, doing home improvements, planning the next operation. It’s really quite charming.

If you haven’t played a Call Of Duty for a while and your trigger finger is itching for action, this is a good one to jump into.

If you play every new entry, well, you’ll try this one anyway.

Either way: good luck, solider. Your country needs you — and so do your housemates.