Elden Ring is fast becoming one of gaming's greatest commercial hits – at least in recent memory. FromSoftware's ambitious open world take on the Dark Souls subgenre of action RPGs has captivated both critics and players alike, amassing a wide audience across all of its platforms. The success of Elden Ring is not merely restricted to its immense popularity, as the game's critical acclaim has also made Elden Ring one of the highest rated Metacritic games of all time.
Taking all these factors into account, it's not at all a remarkable outcome that Elden Ring is one of the best-selling video games in the United States for 2022. Despite launching against other heavyweight titles such as Horizon: Forbidden West, Elden Ring has managed to outsell against all competition, and according to the results analyzed and put forward by the NPD group, Elden Ring is the best-selling video game in February this year – despite releasing at the end of the month.
Yet perhaps the most intriguing results from NPD's market research concern the way Elden Ring stacks up against titles that came out in the span of the last year. In its launch month, only Call of Duty: Vanguard sold more copies compared to Elden Ring, and overall, Elden Ring is the fifth best-selling game in the past twelve months – yet given that Elden Ring launched on February 25th, and NPD's sales were collected up to February 26th – it means that Elden Ring accomplished all this in just a bit more over a day.
Across platforms, it is the top-seller for the month of February on both PC and Xbox, with the Playstation exclusive Horizon: Forbidden West outperforming it on its respective console. Given the strong word-of-mouth the game has had, backed by its popularity on Twitch, as well as its universal critical acclaim, Elden Ring is in a position to have very strong financial legs – as Elden Ring has already sold over 10 million copies on PC in just a week since its release.
There is little doubt that Elden Ring is FromSoftware's biggest Steam launch in history, having reached 600k concurrent players merely an hour after the game's premiere. The implications of Elden Ring's commercial and critical success are simple: players can expect more Dark Souls inspired open world games in the near future. Whether they will be any good is another matter entirely, but with Starfield on the way in November 11th, those in pursuit of a more casual open world experience will be able to sink their claws deep into Bethesda's next single-player sandbox.
Source: Gamespot