Dragon Age: The Veilguard failed as a result of it lacked ‘shared world options’ in keeping with EA, because the writer’s angle to single-player video games shifts once more.
Despite sturdy evaluations, Dragon Age: The Veilguard considerably underperformed for EA, resulting in a lowered income forecast for the remainder of the monetary yr.
This was first acknowledged by the writer final month, however the situation has been raised once more throughout EA’s Q3 2025 earnings name – the place firm CEO Andrew Wilson gave a frustratingly imprecise rationalization as to why the BioWare role-playing sequel failed to seek out an viewers.
In the earnings name, Wilson started by stating EA’s general outcomes (which additionally noticed EA Sports FC underperform) throughout the quarter was ‘not the monetary efficiency we wished or anticipated’, including that video games ‘constructed and delivered with polished execution can typically miss our monetary expectations’.
He then went on to confer with Dragon Age: The Veilguard particularly. ‘In order to interrupt out past the core viewers, video games must immediately hook up with the evolving demand of gamers who more and more search shared world options and deeper engagement alongside high-quality narratives on this beloved class,’ Wilson added.
‘Dragon Age had a high-quality launch and was well-reviewed by critics and people who performed. However, it didn’t resonate with a broad sufficient viewers on this extremely aggressive market.’
While phrases like ‘deeper engagement’ are about as meaningless as they arrive, the point out of ‘shared world options’ feels like EA is alluding to the absence of dwell service components.
According to Bloomberg News, an early model of Dragon Age: The Veilguard featured dwell service elements in an identical vein to BioWare’s Anthem, however when that recreation flopped, and the single-player Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order bought properly, EA stripped out the multiplayer components and made the The Veilguard (then often known as Dreadwolf) a single-player recreation.
Given that context, it feels like Wilson is regretting the choice to not make it a dwell service recreation. Even with that assumption although, it’s a reasonably poor rationalization for Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s failure – a recreation which was poorly marketed, caught with an uninspiring title, and served up as a sequel to a recreation from 10 years in the past.
EA’s dwell service excuse makes extra sense once you have a look at the numbers. As famous within the earnings call, dwell companies make up 74% of EA’s enterprise, with the corporate incomes $1.58 billion in web bookings in that space alone, in comparison with $633 million in full recreation gross sales.
EA chief monetary officer Stuart Canfield appeared to bolster this want for dwell service merchandise shifting ahead, in his personal feedback on Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
‘Historically, blockbuster storytelling has been the first approach our trade purchased beloved IP to gamers,’ Canfield mentioned. ‘The recreation’s monetary efficiency highlights the evolving trade panorama and reinforces the significance of our actions to reallocate sources towards our most important and highest potential alternatives.’
While it’s not express, ‘important and highest potential alternatives’ possible refers back to the dwell service arm of the enterprise on this context.
None of this appears to make any sense within the context of Dragon Age although, whose apparent comparability can be Baldur’s Gate 3. That recreation had no dwell service or multiplayer components in any respect and was simply as progressive in its portrayal of characters as The Veilguard – regardless of complaints from a minority of gamers.
All of this may spell bother for the following Mass Effect recreation, which was introduced approach again in 2020. As famous by venture director Michael Gamble recently on X, the sequel is ‘nonetheless in pre-production’ – which appears early sufficient that dwell service components could possibly be added in mild of The Veilguard’s underperformance.
Combined that with latest layoffs at BioWare and issues aren’t trying optimistic for the following Mass Effect.
As for EA’s future slate, the corporate is about to launch Battlefield 6 earlier than April 2026. Wilson additionally appeared to tease its plans for the Nintendo Switch 2, naming franchises like EA Sports FC, Madden, and The Sims – with new MySims titles already having been leaked.
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