Key Takeaways
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s first-week sales in Europe were less than those of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2.
- This isn’t that bad because Dragon’s Dogma 2 sold quite well, but The Veilguard is set to perform worse than Dragon Age: Inquisition.
- BioWare has yet to release official sales figures.
According to a report from GamesIndustry.Biz‘s Christopher Dring, Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s first-week sales in Europe were outperformed by Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth in their respective launch weeks.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard was the seventh-best-selling game across Europe in October,” Dring writes. “It’s not the biggest launch, however. Compared with other recent RPGs, first-week sales were over 18% lower than Dragon’s Dogma 2 and nearly 21% below Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth.”
This does appear to be an underperformance for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, but not as much of one as you might initially think. Dragon’s Dogma 2 sold surprisingly well, accumulating over 2.5 million global sales during its opening two weeks. While Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth “failed to meet” Square Enix’s expectations, this is because Square Enix’s expectations for the Final Fantasy IP are quite lofty.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is BioWare’s best-selling title, accumulating over 12 million sales. It seems unlikely that Dragon Age: The Veilguard will reach these heights, as even though the game is critically well-received, the atmosphere surrounding the game appears to be mixed and word of mouth has a significant impact on how long a game’s ‘tail’ is. That’s just conjecture on my part, however.
BioWare has yet to release its own sales figures, and publisher Electronic Arts has yet to voice an opinion on whether it considers The Veilguard a success or not. We’ll likely find out more comprehensive figures at the end of the financial year in March 2025.
As for BioWare, the studio is now developing Mass Effect 5. The only information we’ve been able to glean about Mass Effect 5 stems from successive N7 days. Last year, BioWare released several coded messages that referenced the Andromeda galaxy, eventually leading to the release of a video of a slender N7-clad figure strolling down a hallway. This year’s N7 Day was quieter amid the launch of Dragon Age, with BioWare adding N7-inspired armour to Dragon Age: The Veilguard as a gift to fans.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the long-awaited fourth game in the fantasy RPG series from BioWare formerly known as Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. A direct sequel to Inquisition, it focuses on red lyrium and Solas, the aforementioned Dread Wolf.