Former BioWare executive producer Mark Darrah has shared the sales figures for Dragon Age: Inquisition. Here is how they compare to other games made by the Edmonton-based studio.
Dragon Age: Inquisition
On September 17, Darrah shared the data in a comment on X, saying that Dragon Age: Inquisition has sold over 12 million units globally since its launch in November 2014.
He noted that the game “massively oversold the internal EA projections,” adding that he doesn’t understand where the prejudice that it was a commercial failure came from.
In 2018, Darrah called Dragon Age Inquisition the best-selling game in BioWare’s portfolio. And it appears that it holds that title to this day.
Yeah I’m not sure where “DAI was a commercial failure” came from…
Its over 12 million at this point.
MASIVELY oversold the internal EA projections
…
Oh yeah and was GotY in 2014.— Mark Darrah (@BioMarkDarrah) September 17, 2024
Dragon Age: Inquisition sales compared to other BioWare games
Here’re the figures for the previous Dragon Age titles and other BioWare games released before Inquisition (note that lifetime sales for most of them remain undisclosed):
- Dragon Age: Origins — 3.2 million copies sold in three months;
- Dragon Age II — over 2 million copies sold in two months;
- Baldur’s Gate — 2.8 million copies sold as of 2015;
- Baldur’s Gate II — over 2 million copies sold as of 2005;
- Neverwinter Nights — 2.2 million copies sold as of 2007;
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic — 3.2 million copies sold as of 2007;
- Jade Empire — 500k copies sold in two months, below expectations;
- Mass Effect — 1.6 million copies sold in six weeks;
- Mass Effect 2 — over 2 million copies shipped in two weeks (ME1 & 2 sold over 7 million units combined as of April 2011);
- Mass Effect 3 — over 6 million copies sold (the entire trilogy sold over 14 million units as of July 2014).
There is barely any official data on BioWare games released after DA: Inquisition. EA didn’t disclose sales of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, only saying that it was satisfied with their performance.
The company expected Anthem to sell 5-6 million copies by March 31, 2019, but later stated that it missed this target. Alexandre Scriabine, former senior for global marketing strategy at EA, claimed that the game’s lifetime sales reached 5 million units.
On October 31, BioWare and EA will launch Dragon Age: The Veilguard, so it will be interesting to see how the game will perform.