Elden Ring is currently the best-selling game of 2022 in the U.S, beating out recent releases like Horizon Forbidden West and Pokémon Legends: Arceus.
FromSoftware’s Elden Ring is already the best-selling game of 2022 in the U.S, beating out the likes of Horizon Forbidden West and Pokémon Legends: Arceus. The response to Elden Ring has been staggering and even the issues with the PC versions of the game haven’t stopped Elden Ring reaching Steam’s sixth highest player count of all time.
Elden Ring is FromSoftware’s attempt to bring the Dark Souls formula to an open-world setting. Fans around the world have been captivated by Elden Ring‘s beautiful setting and the depth of its combat system. The game has brought up the usual arguments about difficulty in video games, which haven’t been helped by some brutally hard boss fights in Elden Ring, but these have done little to diminish the enthusiasm for the game from the general public.
As to be expected from such a popular game, Elden Ring has been topping the sales charts since its release. Elden Ring beat Gran Turismo 7 in the UK sales chart at launch, but its appeal is even wider than that. According to NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella on Twitter, Elden Ring is currently the best-selling game of 2022 in the U.S so far. The game had the second-highest launch period of any game released over the past months and was only beaten by Call of Duty: Vanguard. The game was ranked #1 on both the Steam and Xbox charts, while placing #2 on PlayStation, behind Horizon Forbidden West. The access to more platforms is what helped Elden Ring outsell Aloy’s latest adventure.
US NPD PREMIUM GAMES – Elden Ring debuted as both the best-selling game of February 2022 as well as 2022 YTD. Launch month sales of Elden Ring were the 2nd highest for any tracked title released in the past 12 months, trailing only Call of Duty: Vanguard, released in Nov 2021.
— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) March 11, 2022
The incredible success of Elden Ring in such a short period of time isn’t too surprising, considering the hype that has surrounded the game, and the incredible critical response it received at launch. The chances of Elden Ring receiving DLC content have also drastically increased, though this is something that was likely already in the works. The game still needs some improvements on the PC platform, as many users are still experiencing technical issues with the game, so dealing with these problems should be FromSoftware’s main priority ahead of releasing DLC.
There’s a good chance that Elden Ring will become the best-selling game of 2022 by the time the year ends, by virtue of it being on so many platforms. The Nintendo Switch has a number of high-profile exclusives coming out this year, but even something like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet will struggle to match something that is a big hit on multiple platforms. There is also Starfield but that is an Xbox/PC exclusive and that lack of access to the PlayStation audience will hurt the game’s sales. The fact that Elden Ring is on so many systems could be what puts it ahead of all of the others released in 2022.
Source: MatPiscatella/Twitter
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