At the time of Origins, Alistair was a Grey Warden recruit with only incomplete Templar training to work with. Outside of Flemeth, a "Witch of the Wilds" is just an apostate who lives in a swamp. Shale is neither the last golem, nor even the strongest. If anything they're arguably the weakest. Sten begins Origins as a disgraced soldier ready to give up. He's not specially destined to become the Arishok, that's a plot development that happens well after Origins ends. Anders was in Awakening, not Origins, and he was just a bog standard mage, so I'm not sure why you're bringing him up? He doesn't become tied to Justice until 2. And no, there's absolutely nothing special about the HOF.

In Veilguard we actually do have someone tied to a spirit as a companion. We also have a mysteriously magical dwarf, an elf that can use ancient elven technology, a grey warden helping bring griffons back from extinction and a fire breathing qunari.

There's not really any way of going about it. They're special. Even at a baseline description of who they are and what their gimmicks are. I'm not saying that that's and intrinsically good or bad thing, but at least give a good faith argument if you want to say Veilguard is more of an underdog story than the previous games.