Dragon Age: Inquisition Massively Oversold Projections, Remains BioWare's Biggest Game

Commander who?

by · Push Square

In a mildly surprising revelation a decade on from the launch of BioWare's Dragon Age: Inquisition, it turns out the developers' last venture to Thedas was wildly successful and "massively" oversold EA's internal projections. In addition, Inquisition shifted a monstrous 12 million copies, making it BioWare's best-selling game to date; for perspective, the entire Mass Effect trilogy, Legendary Edition, and Andromeda combined totalled nearly 14 million, so Commander Shepard, eat your heart out.

Despite that, Inquisition has had an enduring reputation as a commercial failure and the occasional butt of industry jokes; this scribe is guilty of pointing to its 2014 GOTY wins as a sign of a particularly weak year. On X, former Dragon Age executive producer Mark Darrah (who departed in 2020) set the record straight, revealing that the title "massively oversold the internal EA projections", to the shock and surprise of many.

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What do you think? Has Dragon Age: Inquisition been unfairly treated by history? What are your memories of the game? Let us know in the comments section below.

[source x.com]

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About Khayl Adam

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

Comments 45

One of my all time favorite video games and includes my very favorite female video game character, Cassandra Pentaghast. I hope this next installment can live up to what I’m expecting from it. Don’t let me down like Dragon Age 2 did!

This was a good not great game. Origins is better in virtually every way but inquisition gets a bad rap, it’s absolutely worth playing just way too much busy work.

I remember I got it mostly because it was one of the few RPGs available for PS4 around its launch. Well that and I needed a Bioware RPG to hold me over until ME Andromeda.

I liked Inquisition well enough. I didn't love it but I've played worse. Honestly I'm not really that excited to play Veil Guard either but I'll probably pick it up just to support Bioware to hopefully get that next Mass Effect.

Yes. I'm that much of a Mass Effect stan.

My friend adores this game. I played 20 or so hours and I just did not like it much. I just don't like Bioware combat. I played 15 hours of Origins and fell off, and I loathed KotoR, too.

I'm sure this must be heresy, but just give me turn-based combat in my RPGs or true 3D action game controls. Hybrids largely do not work for me - although I did get on with FF7R.

Still need to play this

It just came off incredibly generic for me.

@AhmadSumadi Pretty sure Cassandra was introduced in DA2. Maybe the only thing I remember about that game...
Edit: I lied. I also remember that I was concerned about Bioware because they said something like "push a button, and cool sh*t happens!"

Loved DA: Origins, some of Biowares best work IMO.

Gave up on DA2 about halfway as it was too repetitive w/copy-paste environments.

DA: Inquisition I dropped after I got to the third zone. Seemed uninspired to me.

And after Biowares resent releases I'd have to be a rabid fanboy to trust them with my money again until I get the whole picture and see some unbiased gameplay and systems in action.

Makes it even more appalling that it's taken so long to get a follow up. I mean, we know it was because they were chasing the live-service gravy train, but still, it's frustrating as all hell.

@AhmadSumadi Agreed. I love Inquisition and enjoyed exploring every inch of it. Cassandra was a permanent member in my squad. Irreplaceable.

This was my least favorite Dragon Age game. I love Origins and really liked 2, I thought they were both great for different reasons. I liked Inquisition a lot, but not as much as 2. I definitely thinks it’s the weakest game, but it’s the only playable DA game on modern consoles so it gets the benefit of being playable and great-looking, graphically.

That's surprising. It's not a bad game at all but I can't comprehend it outselling all of ME. It never seemed to make it that big.

I played this to death on my PC running the game @1440p with framerates through the roof..when I got my ps4 I bought it again with all the dlc with every intention of going through it again (yes I liked it that much) but 30fps? Instant no,no,no for me as it just seemed so unresponsive..tried it again on the ps5 hoping that maybe it was boosted to 60fps but no..it still runs like a bag of horse poop..

The new DA was the main feature of last month's EDGE mag and the devs talk about how janky and how many corners they cut during Inquisition's development for various reasons, there was very little faith in it from BW or EA. Personally it was ok at the time, but way too much filler and weak plotting. When the Witcher 3 came out it blew it out of the water, DAI looked absolutely archaic in comparison.

The dragon fights were quality in this one. Proper "Oh sh*t!" moments when you first encountered them. It also gave us Dorian and, my personal favourite, Sera.

It's a little surprising because this game came at a time when most people agreed Bioware's standards were starting to slip, on the back of the middling Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3 ending debacle.

It wasn't a bad game, just not particularly great. Definitely an uninspired GOTY compared to a year later when we had The Witcher 3 and Bloodborne fighting for the crown.

So why was the last dragon age game released 10 years ago

Well deserved. I'm a big Bioware fan but I always thought Mass Effect has more appealing to players than Dragon Age. Guess I'm wrong and that makes me happy because Dragon Age is my favorite series of all time.

I had never heard the claim. The problems with inquisition were gameplay ones.
Also, all it's sequels live in the shadow of origins.

making it BioWare's best-selling game to date; for perspective, the entire Mass Effect trilogy, Legendary Edition, and Andromeda combined totalled nearly 14 million, so Commander Shepard, eat your heart out

This is almost certainly not even remotely true. No official sales data exists because EA doesn’t really do that but Andromeda and ME3 were both very likely close to 10m over their lifetime.

I liked this game a lot when it came out. The ending story DLC was actually really good and really hyped me up for DA4.
Looking back on it now, DA:I has little on offer that other games don´t do better in some way. Lots of big open worlds with meaningless MMO tier content, a relatively mid main quest line, relatively mid combat, some really bad looking animations and other graphical issues. Lackluster loot (the ending DLC kind of fixed this, for the DLC at least..), forgettable opps, choices barely mattering in the grand scale of things.
What carries this game nowadays in my opinion is the (mostly) decent companion writing, the "Dragon Age" branding/theming/whatever you want to call it, and the pretty great art style. It also manages to create the feeling that you´re doing something big as the Inquisition, which is good.

I´d give this game a 6.5 / 10 (slightly above average), thanks for reading my blog post

A solid 8, as I recall. Could even nudge a 9. I really enjoyed my time with it. The only element of the game that was slightly disappointing was the multiplayer component. After really, really enjoying the PvE of Mass Effect 3 (into which I put in well over a 1000 hours), I was really hopeful for Inquisition's version, but it just didn't hit the spot in the same way. Indeed, it wasn't particularly enjoyable at all.

Hopefully, they won't be attempting the PvE this time, unless, of course, they can smash it out of the park as they did with ME3...

You are all crazy, this was a great game. I know a couple of friends who still play it to get different relationships/ story bits.

I absolutely adore the Witcher 3 but this was its own separate vibe

It was a great game and a a disgrace it took so long to make a new one, unfortunate that the next game looks like a Fortnite expansion.

Also, just a quick comment on Mark Darrah. He departed BioWare but he was back like 2 years ago until now in a Consultant role for Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

Im playing dragon age inquisition game of the year edition.and its a amazing game.2014 game of the year.word up son

@Paramahansa yes! She was so in mine. I actually went with Cassandra, Sera, and Viviene. They were like my Charlie’s Angels lol.

@LikelySatan I didn’t get past about an hour of 2. Despise that game! I may revisit it if they re-release it though.

2 and Inquisition were amazing games. Glad I endured Origins to play them.
I think the characters and writing are tte best part.

Well, I wouldn't have expected that, purely because of how rushed and bad DA2 was. What a way to stick it to the fans. However, I was pleasantly surprised with Inquisition. Not sure I'd play it a second time, but I really enjoyed my 100% run in the game. The combat was just as good as ever IMO, but a little more focused on keeping you in the action. I think it deserved a GotY for sure.

@Lup I'm sorry, what? I really don't think I've ever heard anyone say they prefer 2 over Origins. Origins Ultimate is probably one of my favourite games of all time.

@Colour Agreed, the War Table was fun, but if you were trying to maintain it perfectly like myself, it became a really big chore. There were a few fetch quests as well, but I guess I didn't mind at the time, as it wasn't a big negative in my mind.

@Lup Agreed about DA2. It gets a bad rep but the writing is fantastic.

Yeah people were hungry for a big RPG on PS4. Good timing.

Good to hear! Inquisition is still my favourite of the three, though I do enjoy DA2 as well. Origins is horribly outdated, though, and barely playable. It doesn't help that it has the worst cast of the franchise... although the Mabari is actually adorable and I wish it came back in Inquisition.

Can't wait to see what Veilguard brings to the table.

I literally just restarted DAI last night (after stalling for the best part of a decade after barely touching it) — figured I'd try and get back up to speed before the fourth one comes out. So far it's pretty decent!

As someone who never played a DA game, I thought DAI was bloated and boring.

I played a rogue/archer expecting TPS controls because of their pedigree with ME's shooting mechanics. The fact you don't actually control your shooting, as an archer, made me switch to playing a melee ally at the beginning just so felt like I had control.

Annoyed me to no end and I regret spending the time on it.

@AhmadSumadi Ha! Mine was Cassandra, Sera and Dorian. Mostly because I loved their banter.

Inquisition is great - and the GOTY being available on the store for about a fiver on some occasions, it's ludicrous value for money these days.

One of those strange cross-platform/generation games, being on the PS3 and PS4. PS4 version was so much better as the PS3 version was s-l-o-w. DA2 was fairly forgettable, whereas DA; Origins was epic (for it's time)

I personally got bored of this game quickly. The game came out when people were starved for games,it got boosted.

I really enjoyed Inquisition. Too bad about Andromeda and Anthem.

I loved Dragon Age Inquisition. I had taken a 10 year hiatus from games until like 2018 so I missed the discourse on it and played it years after release.

Never understood the negative reception or reaction to it. Sometimes I think people just dogpile stuff because it’s popular.

I adore Inquisition and I always found the 'clowning' on it to be strange and unwarranted. Especially when it came to the GOTY discussion.

What else came out in 2014 that was truly so much better than Inquisition? Dark Souls 2? Yeah, I don't think so

I did about 80+ hours, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous DA games.

It's often the quality of the last thing that determines if the new thing sells.

Inquisition had momentum. It came off the back of Mass Effect and the other Dragon Age games. Not for nothing but fantasy was at it's mainstream peak at this point as well; Game of Thrones was still new and beloved, The Witcher 3 was looming and people were hungry for it, Dark Souls was on the climb, etc. There was a huge audience of people ready for a big fat juicy Bioware Fantasy game.

How many of those 12 million sales were happy with the game and will come back for the new one? That's a much harder question to answer. Inquisition sold... but was it loved? I never got that sense.

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