‘Dragon Age: The Veilguard’ Endures A Brutal Game Awards Shutout

Certainly! Here’s a rephrased version of your blog section title: **Dragon Age: The Veil Protector**

A decade ago in 2014, Dragon Age: Inquisition won numerous Game of the Year accolades, taking home "the top honor" at The Game Awards. Fast forward to 2024, and the latest installment, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, has faced a stark contrast, receiving very few nominations at The Game Awards—just one for Accessibility, which isn’t considered one of the major awards.

As much as I enjoy the game, it's hard to look at this positively. This isn't a good sign for BioWare, especially as the company tries to recover and deliver better games than it has in the last ten years, which featured titles like Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem. It's also a bit peculiar since the same media outlets involved in the nominations for The Game Awards gave it a solid score of 82 on Metacritic, which is only three points lower than Inquisition's score of 85. Yet, it ended up with absolutely no significant nominations.

I don't believe it was realistic to anticipate a Game of the Year nomination for Dragon Age. Even without considering Shadow of the Erdtree, there were plenty of other titles that could have filled that slot. However, it's surprising to see a new Dragon Age game come out after a decade without receiving a nomination for Best RPG, Best Narrative, or for any of its voice acting performances.

Prior to the announcement of the nominations, there was a prevailing belief that the liberal-leaning gaming media would advocate for Dragon Age to receive numerous nominations, including Game of the Year, overlooking more divisive titles like Wukong. However, in a surprising turn of events, Dragon Age ended up with just one nomination for accessibility, while Wukong secured a spot for Game of the Year. It turned out to be the opposite of what many expected.

It's definitely possible to claim that The Game Awards are insignificant, but let's not forget that BioWare was once a powerhouse at these events, especially with their original Mass Effect and Dragon Age series. The fact that Veilguard didn't receive much recognition is not a good sign for the idea that BioWare has managed to recover from its previous struggles.

It's more than just the nominations. It's quite clear that EA has yet to share any sales figures or player counts, nearly three weeks following the game's release. The only information we have is the Steam concurrent player data, which peaked at a respectable 85,000 around launch time. If EA had impressive numbers to showcase, they would surely be making a big deal about it, but instead, they remain quiet.

This is an undeniably odd scenario. It’s not that Dragon Age should have swept every category with nominations, but it was a title that critics generally praised, and it continues to maintain Mostly Positive ratings on Steam as well as 4 out of 5 stars on consoles. Yet, somehow this year, Star Wars Outlaws has received more notable nominations than Dragon Age, which is quite surprising. BioWare must be hoping that their upcoming Mass Effect game performs better, as it seems there’s something lacking that hasn’t connected with a broad audience.

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