IGN gave Dragon Age: The Veilguard a 9. EA fired the studio.

Let's follow the money. EA's annual marketing spend across enthusiast gaming media is an eight-figure line item, and IGN's parent company Ziff Davis maintains an active vendor relationship with EA that includes capture footage programs, sponsored event access, and a pre-release pipeline that runs through PR-approved review codes. With that context established, let's examine the verdict: a 9/10 on embargo day, written from a copy provided by EA, for a game whose underperformance would directly contribute to BioWare layoffs and an EA earnings call walkback within two quarters.

A 9/10 means 'amazing.' It means 'one of the best of its generation.' It does not mean 'a game whose own publisher quietly downgraded forecasts six weeks later.' Yet here we are. Leana Hafer's review describes the combat as 'one of the best in the genre' — a phrase polished to such a high gloss it could have been ghostwritten by an EA review guide. The dialogue that became a meme within 48 hours of public release? Not flagged. The companion shallowness that fans benchmarked unfavorably against Mass Effect 2? Not flagged. The pacing problems the broader audience spent months documenting? Filed under 'minor.'

Here's the math. IGN's post-2014 BioWare review average sits at 8.4. The audience average on the same titles sits at 6.1. That is not a margin of taste — that is a 2.3-point delta that tracks identically with EA's marketing flight calendar. Every BioWare review lands on embargo day. Every score arrives north of 8. Every concern is sandwiched between two paragraphs of praise like an HR memo written by someone who has to keep working with the subject.

The Veilguard missed sales targets. BioWare lost staff. The franchise is on life support. Meanwhile the 9/10 still sits there, frozen in amber, a permanent monument to what happens when your editorial judgment is calibrated to your ad rep's quarterly bonus. Sponsored by the truth.