From Software’s Elden Ring has becoming the best-selling game of 2022 thus far, with strong sales across all platforms helping it dominate this month’s NPD results.
The NPD Group results reflect the total content spend across games, DLC, and subscription purchases in the US, and Elden Ring quickly became the best performing game of the year despite its late February launch. It was the best-selling game of the month, too, and is currently the second best-selling game in its launch month over the last 12 months, with only Call of Duty: Vanguard having sold more. Elden Ring is also now the fifth best-selling game of the last 12 months. Considering the NPD results collect sales up until February 26, this means Elden Ring achieved this in just two days.
Elden Ring was the best-selling game of February on both PC and Xbox, while coming in at second on PlayStation. The top spot there belonged to Horizon Forbidden West, with the Sony exclusive managing the second-most sales in the month of February. Pokemon Legends: Arceus came in at third, while Dying Light 2 ended the month in fourth, despite digital sales not being recorded by the NPD for either game.
In terms of hardware over the past month, the Nintendo Switch was once again the best-selling console over the period, both in terms of units sold and dollars in revenue. The Xbox Series consoles (Series X and Series S) ranked second in both units and revenue across the same period. PlayStation trailed the two, but still has the highest revenue on console sales for the year, while the Nintendo Switch leads in terms of units sold.
Coupled with such strong commercial success, Elden Ring has received widespread critical acclaim, becoming one of the highest-rated games in Metacritic history. In our 10/10 Elden Ring review, editor Tamoor Hussain praised the game’s captivating exploration and combat, writing “Elden Ring takes the shards of what came before and forges them into something that will go down in history as one of the all-time greats: a triumph in design and creativity, and an open-world game that distinguishes itself for what it doesn’t do as much as what it does.”
February 2022 Top 20 Games According To NPD Group
- Elden Ring
- Horizon Forbidden West
- Pokemon Legends: Arceus*
- Dying Light 2: Stay Human*
- Total War: Warhammer III
- Call of Duty: Vanguard
- Madden NFL 22
- Mario Kart 8*
- FIFA 22
- Minecraft
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales
- Mario Party Superstars*
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons*
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
- Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
- Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy Definitive Edition*
- NBA 2K22
- Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/ Shining Pearl*
- Far Cry 6
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
*Digital sales not included in results
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