Dragon Age: The Veilguard Character Creator Is Being Released for Free as a Standalone App

Just as BioWare celebrates November 7 as the day of the year to celebrate all things Mass Effect, Dragon Age has a day to itself as well — and that’s today, December 4.

It’s also the first Dragon Age Day in a decade where BioWare actually has a new Dragon Age game to celebrate at all, and it’s revealed a few surprises related to The Veilguard. The biggest one: it’s releasing its character creator as a free, standalone app on all platforms.

That means you can make your own Rook (the player character) without shelling out for the game, and if you do decide to purchase The Veilguard in the end, you can simply import the character you already made. Plus, there’s no time limit on it — and that’s important, because you can kill a lot of time in that very detailed, slider-heavy character creator. As BioWare points out in its own blog post announcing the feature, one creator, breebunn, spent a whopping 21 hours making her character.

Outside of the character creator, The Veilguard is also getting a fourth patch today, which includes a number of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements. In a nice nostalgic touch, it also gifts players with a cosmetic that’ll allow your Rook to look like Dragon Age II’s protagonist, Hawke. It includes the iconic armor set, body paint, and yes, even the nose blood smear. Plus, Patch 4 also includes two new Qunari complexions that appear to address fan complaints about the lack of horn-to-forehead texture.

Lastly, BioWare promises to reveal a number of stats later today that’ll shed light on players’ choices for some of the bigger in-game decisions in The Veilguard.

It’s only the latest from Dragon Age Day, with the game’s directors recently sitting down with IGN for a spoiler-filled chat about the endings. For more, you can check out the full Patch 4 notes below:

New Content:

• Dragon Age 2 Hawke’s Iconic Outfit
  • Armor
  • Body Paint
  • Face Paint
• Qunari Complexions
  • Two new complexions for the Qunari lineage

Quality of Life Changes:

• In Patch 3, we introduced a line on screen showing where a Photo Mode screenshot was saved. In Patch 4, we are reverting that change due to a safety concern brought to us by some content creators. PC players can find their Photo Mode screenshots in Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age: The Veilguard/screenshots
• Added an in-game Setting to turn off Bloom.
• Added a “Hide/Show UI” button on the pause screen to better take screenshots on Console.
• Added a “Take Photo” button on the pause screen to take screenshots during conversations and cinematics on PC.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue that prevented some saves from loading properly. (PC Only)
• Fixed an issue that was preventing the Frame Rate Limit setting from being saved.
• Fixed an issue with Rook’s face and hair changing drastically when a save is loaded.
• Fixed an issue with certain longer hairstyles that floated above Rook’s chest and shoulders.
• Fixed an issue where two Neve characters could appear in the Fire and Ice quest.
• Fixed a rare issue where Emmrich did not lead Rook to the next task in his recruitment Where the Dead Must Go quest.
• Adjusted the spirit guides in The Warden Vault quest.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Ultimate Ability to swap to the default Ultimate.
• Fixed an issue where the Ultimate Ability Icon was not displayed after Bellara is recruited.
• Fixed an issue where the first hit in a Warrior Rook’s shield throw may miss the target unintentionally.
• Fixed an issue where the Slaughter of Pillars Revenant had no health bar.
• Fixed an issue that caused Achievement Progress to reset when a new Rook was created. This will not restore Achievement Progress that was overwritten, but your Rooks will no longer compete with each other for who can kill more High Dragons.
• Fixed an issue with the camera in The Demon’s Bargain quest when playing on an HDD.
• Fixed an issue with the camera in the Sea of Blood quest if Rook backtracked too far.
• Fixed two instances where Viago was clearly talking to Rook but was too absorbed by Teia’s beauty and staring at her instead.
• Fixed an issue with Photo Mode screenshots appearing slightly blurry for some players.
• Fixed an issue where taking a screenshot with the space bar in Photo Mode also toggled the highlighted setting at the same time. (PC Only)
• Fixed an audio issue that caused battle music to stop playing while Rook was still fighting darkspawn in A Warden’s Best Friend quest.
• Fixed an audio issue that prevented music from playing during a conversation with Lucanis in the Lighthouse.
• Fixed a rare lighting issue in the One Last Breath quest
• Fixed a blocking issue in the Fire and Ice quest when returning to the Lighthouse.
• Fixed a blocking issue in the Blood of Arlathan quest if Rook backtracked too far.
• Fixed a UI issue that caused the “New Item” highlight to get stuck on an item.
• Fixed an issue with the In Lost Friendship codex that was mentioning events out of order and possibly with the wrong companion.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the male British Inquisitor (Harry Hadden-Paton) to be pitched too low.
• Updated several German voice line instances with corrected translations.

Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.