‘Dragon Age: Inquisition’ Performed Half As Well As Expected, Says EA

After the failure to launch Anthem as an important new IP, and the decline in series quality that came with Mass Effect Andromeda, BioWare really needed a hit in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. It did not find one.

While originally things may have looked promising, with Dragon Age grabbing the highest concurrent Steam playercount of any BioWare game, the longer term picture was far less rosy. In a preliminary Q3 report by EA, it cited Dragon Age: The Veilguard as one of the reasons its forecast for FY2025 went from a predicted increased to a projected decline.

“Dragon Age engaged approximately 1.5 million players during the quarter, down nearly 50% from the company’s expectations,” says the report.

A new game, particularly one ten years in the making after a GOTY-winning sequel, underperforming by a full 50% is dire. You’ll also notice from the wording there that it says “engaged” not “sold,” as this number includes those who might have played via EA Play. So sales are likely not

Dragon Age: The Veilguard reviewed decently enough among critics, an 82 Metascore (I gave it an 8.5), but that did not translate into sales. Why? Likely a combination of a few reasons:

• This is a sequel to a game that released 10 years ago, and it relied on story elements from that original game, including knowledge of its main villain, Solas, which many new players may not have had. Or they just were not interested in a series they did not play in the first place a decade ago.
• For some existing players game was a pretty significant departure in aesthetic and tone from past games, seemingly aimed at a somewhat younger crowd (again, maybe some who didn’t play the first game0 and scaling back some of its harsher themes. Dialogue too often felt overly modern for some players.
• Veilguard also became the centerpiece of yet another culture war about “woke” games regarding its trans and non-binary features/storylines. It frequently consumed at least part of the online conversation about the game in the run-up to release in a way that BioWare and EA likely did not want.
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard had the unfortunate timing to release just over a year after all-time great RPG Baldur’s Gate 3, far and away the most-beloved title of its release year and surpassing Veilguard in every way, making for a poor comparison point. It also may have directly affected playercount as despite it being well over a year later, Baldur’s still has put up over 100K concurrent players on Steam a night as recently as this month, more than Veilguard’s all-time count. It also has sold 15 million copies, by last count.

The Dragon Age underperformance is not actually the biggest story in the EA report, as the more concerning reveal from the company is that FC 25 underperformed, formerly a sure thing for the company and it accounted for the majority of the decline, not Dragon Age. So that’s a more urgent issue EA must deal with. Apex Legends, its F2p battle royale, also lost a significant amount of players in 2024.

Still, for BioWare, this is three games in a row that are likely considered misses to some degree. When probably Mass Effect: Andromeda was the best performer, that’s a problem. Now, there is a new Mass Effect being worked on, but you have to imagine this does not end well if that too disappoints. Four strikes, you may just be out for good at that point.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.