Key Takeaways
- Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s launch was reportedly “good but not great.”
- The game may struggle to match DA: Inquisition’s launch and lifetime sales.
- With over 12 million lifetime sales, DA: Inquisition is still the best-selling BioWare game of all time.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard may struggle to surpass the launch sales of DA: Inquisition, an industry analyst said. This prediction was shared as part of a wider analysis of the game’s launch, which suggests that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is off to a modest start.
According to an average estimate from several third-party trackers, Dragon Age: The Veilguard sold more than 300,000 copies on Steam alone in its first few days on the market. As of November 24, a week ahead of the game’s first-month anniversary, that average projection has now surpassed 500,000 units.
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As for the RPG’s day-one console sales, they were strong enough for Dragon Age: The Veilguard to place sixth on Circana’s chart of the top-selling U.S. games in October 2024. Speaking to IGN, Circana Executive Director Mat Piscatella explained that this ranking is solely fueled by the game’s commercial success on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, as EA doesn’t provide Steam sales figures for Circana’s monthly charts. Had data from the largest PC game storefront been included, The Veilguard might have ranked as high as third, Piscatella opined. Nevertheless, the analyst isn’t convinced that the new Dragon Age game’s launch sales are comparable to those of its predecessor, though Circana’s market data only goes back to 2018.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s Launch Was Reportedly ‘Good But Not Great’
Piscatella labeled Dragon Age: The Veilguard‘s launch as “good but not great,” citing engagement metrics tracked by Circana. Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth have both generated more launch momentum following their 2024 releases, the analyst said. “It will be a bit of an uphill battle to reach Inquisition‘s lifetime sales,” Piscatella said, while noting that November 2024 data will give Circana “a much better read” on the situation.
It will be a bit of an uphill battle to reach Inquisition’s lifetime sales.
Back in September 2024, former BioWare Executive Producer Mark Darrah said that Dragon Age: Inquisition‘s lifetime sales were over 12 million. The cited figure is presumably several years old, as Darrah left BioWare in early 2021. Meanwhile, even the most generous sales estimates suggest The Veilguard is currently at under 2 million units sold as of late November 2024, which aligns with Piscatella’s belief that the RPG could struggle to reach the lifetime sales of BioWare’s best-selling game to date.
While big-budget single-player games that sold way more copies in the long term than during their launch month do exist—The Witcher 3 being a famous example—they are not the norm. And seeing how BioWare has no plans to work on any post-launch content for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it remains to be seen how the studio’s latest RPG will perform in the long run.
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