Summary
For those unfamiliar with the current PS Plus structure, which is probably still quite a lot of people even two years on from its restructure, Essential is the cheapest tier of the subscription service. The tier that doesn’t grant access to Extra and Premium’s libraries, but allows you to play online and bags you a few free games every month, although you can only continue to play them while your subscription is active.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard Will Be Free To Claim Through PS Plus Essential In March
Another Sign That EA Isn’t Happy With Its Sales Numbers
Most Essential games are titles that have been out for a couple of years or longer, with a few exceptions likeLost Records: Bloom & Rage,Stray, andAnimal Welllaunching on the service day one. The Veilguard obviously doesn’t fall into either of those categories and its appearance as a free-to-claim game through Essential so soon after its rocky launch suggests EA is desperate to get people playing it, even if it means giving it away.
EA revealed during its latest financials that 1.5 million people had played The Veilguard. That’s half ofthe three million copies sold during its launch window that the publisher was expecting. It seems the fourth Dragon Age game underwent a turbulent development period that began with EA requesting it include live service elements, scrapping that idea midway through, and then seeminglypointing to a lack of live service for being the reason it underperformed.
BioWare has laid off developerssince The Veilguard’s release which paints a worrying picture for the series' future. Some fans believe that it might not have a future withone BioWare writer saying Dragon Age belongs to the fans now. Hopefully giving The Veilguard away with PS Plus will give the game a boost and inject new life into it, although without people paying for the privilege, that might not be enough to convince EA to keep the series alive.
