Call Of Duty: Vanguard Expected To Be Best-Selling Game Of 2021 In The US (Of Course)

Now that Call of Duty: Vanguard has been officially announced, one analyst has said it should be the best-selling game of the year in the US--and that's no surprise.

NPD's Mat Piscatella said he's forecast Vanguard to be the best-selling game overall in the US for 2021. He made his prediction on Twitter, also acknowledging that it's not a surprising take to have. "Shocking, I know," he said.

Call of Duty has been the No. 1 best-selling game each year of the past decade except for in 2018 and 2013 when Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption II and Grand Theft Auto V topped the charts. (It's worth noting that the 2018 race was very close, and that Red Dead Redemption II edged out Black Ops 4 in part because PC sales of the Treyarch shooter were not tracked). But this is all to say, Call of Duty is a bankable No. 1 every year that Rockstar doesn't release a big new game in the GTA or Red Dead franchises. Rockstar is releasing GTA V for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in November around the time that Vanguard is expected to launch, and it'll be interesting to see how Rockstar's open-world game fares on the new platforms.

Call of Duty has more competition than normal this year, as EA is bringing out Battlefield 2042 this holiday and Microsoft is launching the first new mainline Halo game since 2015 in Halo Infinite this year as well. Still, those games are not expected to sell as well as Vanguard. That, too, is no surprise given that Call of Duty historically performs better than Battlefield and Halo is a platform-exclusive so it inherently lacks the potential reach of a multiplatform title.

With Call of Duty, Battlefield, and Halo all releasing big new games this year, though, it's an exciting time to be a fan of FPS games. Vanguard will be unveiled in greater depth through a Warzone reveal on August 19.

Activision is currently being sued by the state of California over claims of misconduct including sexual harassment and discrimination of women.