Elden Ring Has A Massive Start In The UK

Arguably the most anticipated game of 2022 is FromSoftware's Elden Ring. It looks like the numbers back up the theory too, as Elden Ring is the biggest video game launch in the UK since 2018, with the exception of Call of Duty and FIFA releases, according to Game Sales Data (GSD).

In a report by GamesIndustry.biz, Elden Ring sold 2.5x the number of copies that Horizon Forbidden West did during its launch week last month. Additionally, Elden Ring's first-week sales are larger than both Cyberpunk 2077 and Assassin Creed Valhalla's.

As for the game format and platform splits, GSD's data suggests that 68% of Elden Ring's total sales in the UK were digital. Almost 85% of those who played Elden Ring on Xbox bought the game digitally, while it was 73% for PC players. For PlayStation players, the preference for physical or digital was almost split evenly, with digital downloads inching just over 50%.

Between all copies sold in the UK, Elden Ring sold almost evenly across every platform it released on. GSD's physical and digital numbers say that PlayStation 5 accounted for 32% of sales, with PC and Xbox trailing not far behind at 30% and 29%, respectively. The outlier here is that the PlayStation 4 version only contributed 9%. Xbox sales are also combined across both Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S platforms, unlike PlayStation platforms.

In GameSpot's Elden Ring review-in-progress, Tamoor Hussain said, "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."