March was undoubtedly a huge month for fans of Activision's flagship first-person shooter Call of Duty franchise, and Sony's PlayStation 4 download charts reflect that success. Two Call of Duty games were listed in the top 10 most-downloaded titles of the month, and the highly-played Call of Duty: Warzone beat both Epic Games' Fortnite and Respawn Entertainment's Apex Legends in the free-to-play games category.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was the most downloaded PlayStation 4 game of March 2020 according to the charts released by Sony Interactive's Content Communications Manager Justin Massongill on the PlayStation Blog today. In second was San Diego Studio's MLB The Show 20, which released on March 17; third was Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V; and fourth was id Software's Doom Eternal, which released on March 20.
The fifth most downloaded game was the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered, in-turn beating out titles like Team Ninja's Nioh 2 and Atlus' Persona 5 Royal. Meanwhile, Beat Games' Beat Saber topped the highest performing PlayStation VR games chart, while Fortnite and Massive Entertainment's The Division 2: Warlords of New York headlined the DLC and expansions chart.
Between the double-whammy releases of Warzone and MW2 Campaign Remastered, it's not hard to see why Call of Duty enjoyed this supremacy on the PlayStation charts last month. The series was discussed widely on social media alongside the dual releases of Doom Eternal and Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons on March 20.
As Sony prepares to release its next-generation console, the PlayStation 5, plenty of popular titles are still making their way onto current hardware even in spite of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Some games like Naughty Dog's The Last of Us 2 have been delayed in the wake of worldwide shutdowns that have led to studios instituting work from home policies, but chances are Call of Duty may be dethroned by Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 Remake in the charts for April 2020.
However, given the shooter franchise's ubiquitous presence with Modern Warfare, Warzone, and MW2 Campaign Remastered, it's hard to tell for certain — especially as the third season of content in Modern Warfare and Warzone circulates. Though with issues already popping up for that new content on Xbox, time will tell whether Call of Duty on PlayStation sees a dip in its current supremacy.
Source: PlayStation Blog