EA and BioWare’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard had a lukewarm release that was completely and utterly trounced by the Monster Hunter Wilds beta.

A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare


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On its release date, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s player count peaked at 70,414 a far cry from the “breakout potential” EA CEO Andrew Wilson claimed the game had during EA’s Q2 2025 Earnings Conference Call.

Wilson said, “I certainly think Veilguard has breakout potential. Again, 10 years ago, Dragon Age: Inquisition won Game of the Year and was a very strong performer for us in the conduct of our business. This is entertainment. And so while much of our business has moved to live service moment-to-moment, deliver innovation and creativity for a deeply engaged community over the course of time, this opportunity to bring in incredibly high quality, creative storytelling set in an amazing world with rich characters living out those stories you’re able to capture that moment in entertainment. Success almost certainly follows.”

Dragon Age: The Veilguard SteamDB peak concurrent player charts

The game’s peak player counts were dwarfed by Monster Hunter Wilds, which hit a peak of 463,798 users. Of note, the beta test for Monster Hunter Wilds is free while Dragon Age: The Veilguard costs $60.

Monster Hunter Wilds Beta Test SteamDB peak concurrent player charts

However, if one goes back to August, Black Myth Wukong’s benchmark tool even beat Dragon Age: The Veilguard. The benchmark tool hit 85,277 concurrent peak players.

Black Myth Wukong benchmark tool Steam charts via SteamDB

While Dragon Age: The Veilguard only hit 70,414 in its first day it is likely to see that number increase as players pick up the game over the weekend. Similar trends were seen with recent releases such as Metaphor: ReFantazio, which saw its peak player count hit 85,961 on its first Sunday after being released on Friday, October 11th.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO followed a similar trend albeit it peaked at 122,554 concurrent players on Friday, October 11th after being released on October 10th.

A screenshot from Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero (2024), Spike Chunsoft

Former World of Warcraft Team Lead Mark Kern aka Grummz shared his analysis of Veilguard peaking at just 70,414 on its release date describing it as “concerning” and alleging that it is a sign that the game is already “underperforming.”

He wrote on X, “It’s true California isn’t online yet, but people joining earlier are leaving the game, or you would see the curve stack more. It’s about session time. Long form RPGs tend to have really long session times vs, say FPS games. But we’re not seeing that here. People are logging off after a relatively short about of time.”

A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare

Grummz elaborated, “You would expect that east coast would still be playing as California came online, but they are not. This means session times are low, perhaps 2-3 hours, which, for an RPG on launch day, is not great. There is no cumulative effect here as east coast plays and west coast joins them.”

“It may mean players tried it and got tired of it early (not good), but I think we are starting to see the Dragon Age Bait and Switch effect, as the gamers look and feel is very different from its predecessors, as well as the effect of all the preachy DEI that is self evident in the game,” he posited.

He concluded, “When you have AA games with much smaller publishers doing 300k or so, money guys are going to ask what they are spending so much more for. If weekend numbers don’t go higher, this also means that players who tried it today are not coming back to try it again over the weekend. This would be very unusual.”

 

What do you make of Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s first-day peak concurrent player counts?