In brief: Dragon Age: The Veilguard, BioWare's long-awaited return to the franchise, finally launched yesterday. There's been quite a lot of controversy around the game, to say the least, but it doesn't seem to be having much of an impact on sales. The RPG has knocked Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 off the top of the Steam chart and has broken BioWare's concurrent player record.
There was plenty of anger from Dragon Age fans when the first gameplay trailer showed The Veilguard's more cartoonish aesthetic, a stark contrast to the realistic and often grim visuals of the earlier games. But it seems that players haven't been put off. The Veilguard is currently the top-selling game on Steam, having pushed Black Ops 6 into second place.
The latest Dragon Age is also breaking BioWare records. According to SteamDB, about 70,414 people were playing concurrently at its peak, the highest ever for a BioWare game, beating Mass Effect Legendary Edition's 59,817 concurrent peak.
It's also one of the highest peaks for Dragon Age publisher EA's single-player games. It beats the 67,855 peak attained by Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, though it's still lower than Need for Speed Heat, which peaked at 86,196, and The Sims 4, which reached a peak of 96,328 concurrent players.
Beyond the look of the game, there has been a lot of controversy over what is being called Dragon Age's political message. One scene in particular sees a character misgender another and do a set of push-ups to apologize, before lecturing the others on why this is better than traditional apologies. The use of the term "nonbinary" in this fantasy setting isn't sitting well with some people, either, with a few comparing it to the infamous "Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys" line said by an orc in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
There is a better, more subtle way to include a trans character in your fantasy game that does not involve a performative apology and a lecture using parlance that has no place in a game like this. This is basically self-parody. It's a shame because the game is, imo, still quite… pic.twitter.com/9XXJ2oCdGd
– Erik 'daibo' Kain (@erikkain) October 31, 2024
Aside from that aspect, it seems that most people are enjoying the game. It sits on a Mostly Positive Steam rating (79% positive reviews), with many of the complaints being aimed at performance issues and bugs. Reviews have been good, too. Veilguard has a Metascore of 79 for the PC version, 84 on PS5, and 93 on Xbox Series X.
