Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD - SALES & REVIEW ROUND-UP"

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/AnalyticIn this segment of Notorious Mass Effect, Analytic Dreamz dives into the latest developments from BioWare and Amazon's ambitious project. We start by exploring BioWare's strategic pivot, as they confirm no DLC plans for the recently released Dragon Age: The Veilguard, focusing instead on the eagerly awaited Mass Effect 5. Despite no expansions, The Veilguard offers an extensive gameplay experience, with players spending over 88 hours on main story and side quests.Analytic Dreamz then shifts gear to discuss Amazon MGM Studios' venture into the Mass Effect universe with a new TV series. With Daniel Casey at the helm as writer and executive producer, and backed by a team including industry veterans like Karim Zreik, Ari Arad, and Michael Gamble, the adaptation is set to expand beyond the iconic Commander Shepard narrative. The series might delve into rich segments like the First Contact War or the political intricacies of the Citadel.We'll address the challenges Amazon faces in bringing the detailed world of Mass Effect to life, from ensuring accurate alien species representation to maintaining the storytelling depth fans expect. Given Amazon's track record with hits like Fallout, which garnered 16 Emmy nominations and 100 million views, there's a palpable optimism for this project. Lastly, Analytic Dreamz reflects on the legacy of the Mass Effect series since its debut in 2007 and BioWare's commitment to expanding this beloved universe, especially after the last installment, Mass Effect: Andromeda. This segment promises to provide listeners with a comprehensive look at what's next for these iconic franchises.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Now before we get started, obviously BioWare made one of my favorite, not one of, made my favorite video game franchise of all time when it comes to Mass Effect. So starting off my Dragon Age, the Vail Guard review as far as sales and review Roundup, I have to get into how BioWare themselves came out and said that they have no DOC plans for Dragon Age. the Vail Guard shifting is full focus to the development of and this warms my heart to the development of Mass Effect 5 now I know this may make some Vail guard players upset but guess what this is analytic dreams and Mass Effect is my favorite video game on the Citadel so I'm I'm I'm sorry Sorry. This had to happen. All right. So anyways, you get the point, right?

I'm very excited that they've shifted their focus to Mass Effect 5 because that's what I have come to anticipate from them ever since Mass Effect and Drama came out, which we're really not going to talk about that too much. Even though it wasn't a bad game, essentially, compared to the trilogy of Mass Effect. It just wasn't up to part. Anyways, back to Dragon Age, the Vald Guard. Ladies and gentlemen, the general consensus around this game is that this video game is phenomenal. So as far as a game of the year contender, I believe this deserves a spot, especially in the lackluster year of 2024. Now, I know some of y'all probably saying, what do you mean lacklustre? I mean, we have Blackop Six, Astrobot, metaphor.

And I'll probably say this one will round out the game of the year nominees. and of course he has Stella Blade but when I'm comparing it to 2003 where we had both Mario and Zelda come out in the same year we had Tekken. I think Street Fighter I don't know if Street Fighter came out

now I don't know if Techin came out last year. Let me see. Okay, so Tekken came out Oh yeah, it just missed last year. Okay, so essentially it came out last year. I mean January 26, 2024. I know technically it says

24 but we're going to count as 2023 right second street fighter mortar combat all in the same year Mario Zelda in the same year um balder's gate i mean 2023 was jam packed which is straight up i'm not going to say classics but let's just say great bodies of work when it came to time after time again in every single month 24 started out started off very slow it really didn't pick up to the last months and of course people probably point to teken but i'm giving that to twenty twenty three i ain't i'm not going to lie to you i think um tecun was just waiting for street fighters to you know get some breathing room or more to combat it was one of them because they all came out like after each other like a certain amount of time after one another but anyways um why am i saying not of that because

basically velgard is up there for a game of the year and i do believe that is a very strong contender. I don't think it's just automatically given to metaphor as far as game of the year, which I will get to as far as, uh, at some point, maybe in this episode. Actually, I may extend this episode to talk about metaphor because I think I have to do my due diligence as far as covering the games that, of course, you know, pun intended, affects the masses. So with that being said, Dragon Age Velgaard, even though quality wise, it was top tier. When it comes to the sales, It ended up peaking around 84,000 on Steam, but I think people were setting the bar. I'm not going to say too high because, of course, I believe Alan Wake 2 didn't have the craziest numbers,

but it essentially broke even over time. That is because it's a great product. Now, with Dragon Age Vell Guard, even though it didn't reach the heights that some other RPG games released, that other RPG games achieve in this first week, I still believe the longevity of having a great product will speak for itself. As even when it was first coming out, PlayStation basically said it was amongst the top,

among the top pre-order games before its release. Now, of course, analytic dreams, I love to look at the data and not going to lie to you. I don't see it in a top 10 for PlayStation. I don't know if they're waiting for it to come out on PS4. Like, honestly, the people who play retro consoles, referring to the PS4, are probably still waiting for their PS4 version.

Let me just tell you all right now. It's never going to happen. All right. Anyways, let's get back to up-to-date hardware, right? So, PS5 is not in the top 10, but, you know, the reason why I pointed out is not in the top 10 because, of course, with Xbox, which, you know, as a PlayStation owner, I mean, goodness. you would think we would have better representation it is but i guess not so anyway it's going over to

the xbox it's not in the top five but it is number six so obviously that's a little bit you know better than not even being in the top ten of playstation right so it's the six most played game on the xbox platform we don't know what number it is for playstation we just know it's outside the top ten so it could be 11 could be the 50th we don't know as far as steam it is the 39th most played game on the steam platform with you know of course an all-time peak of 89,000 currently 26,000 is concurrently playing the game so with that being said data is not everything as far as sales really what matters is that quality level is achieved from a development standpoint because even if it doesn't sell a lot at least you can live with the

fact that you put your all into it but if it sells a if it does sell a lie and you have you know what it did then it ends up falling off and you have nobody to blame for yourself So when it comes to me talking about sales and charts, I think it's very essential to know that it does not correlate with quality. Just because you sell a lot does not mean it's high quality. Just because you don't sell a lot means it's below quality, a below average quality. It's basically non, it doesn't correlate. So sometimes it does as far as high quality, having a lot of sales and low quality, having low sales. But I'm just saying it's not a given.

Anyways, Dragon Age DeVelgard, as you can see with the scores right there, it has a lot of high reviews from a lot of different publications like IGM, giving it a 9 out of 10 praising the combat and character development. Of course, Eurogamer giving it in a hundred out of a... Hold up. Don't they know this the same publisher that made Mass Effect? They said this is Bioware's best game ever. I don't know how I feel about that. I ain't going to lie to you. I don't want Bioware to ever fail because they...

develop Mass Effect. I don't ever want them to fail. But I'm just saying the best game ever. Like, what you mean about that? Oh, no, now, is that Mass Effect slander? Obviously, it's not slander. I don't know. I don't like that. Anyways, let me get back to all the same. All right, games radar gave Velgaard a 90 out of 100 saying it, um, highlighting the accessibility as far as gameplay and narrative. And of course, when I was getting, hit my mic again, when I was getting feedback from people who play the game and things that nature and watching different play-throughs or different walkthroughs. The one thing I did notice, I'm not going to say it's dumbed down, but it seems like the prime and detonate system is very simplistic. Now, hopefully it's not

hurtful for people who play the game, but I'm just saying it like in general, I know when I play mass effect and i ran with certain squad mates simply off the fact that their powers uh complimented mine for dragon age velgar they basically i'm not going to say they won't let you play with certain characters but they will like obviously show you that they don't correlate with your playst out if the attributes don't match up so in mass effect they didn't really do that as obvious and as blatant as they do it in veilgard which could be a positive for people just getting into to these type of RPG games. So I'm not mad at them holding your hand,

but it was very obvious to me that that's what they was doing as far as throughout the gameplay. So anyways, let's keep going with the reviews. PC Gamer gave this a 79 out of 100, the lowest game, I mean, the lowest score, of course. Appreciating the story despite minor issues, Forbes gave this an 8.5 out of 10, noting strong story and engaging gameplay.

And yeah, of course, pure Xbox. I don't even know what that is. Game rent, I don't know what that is either. Anyways, we might keep going. So obviously, I was just reading, you know, I like to do review roundups because I want to give you a general consensus in a concise fashion so you know what the public perception is of this video game. So anyways, something else I wanted to touch on was that overall, the sales is not bad.

I don't ever want it to come across like the sales were bad. I'm just saying as far as out the gate, just top, chart topping numbers, it did not have that. But it's okay to have solid numbers and then just break even over time. And maybe due to it being a quality body of work, it can have that Mass Effect type of longevity. Because people who really were around when Mass Effect came out, mass effect's not the biggest game in the world. It's not the biggest IP in the world. When it came out, it still wasn't. When Mass Effect 2 came out, it still wasn't.

it was in mass effect three it just built upon its fan base to the point now you have people like me buying whole real leather and seven jackets just to show my uh fandom for that video game like you just have people you you garner over time by putting out a good body of work even though it may not be the most popular so when it comes to veilgard not breaking the charts when it comes to sales i think it'll be okay it'll be okay for the simple fact that it's a great body body of work people can always come back to it because of the holiday season coming up and the discounts and then ultimately you just have to keep in mind that blackout six did just come out right and then we had dragon ball that came out metaphor came out that we're about to get into and just overall understanding that time as time passes

people will recognize dragon age the veld guard as i'm not going to say an underappreciated gym but definitely a gym when it comes when it comes to the year of gaming for 2024 so with that being said click my link sure in my bio let me know on one of my social medias what do you think about dragon age the vel-guard and if you've played the game what is your favorite aspect of the video game