Elden Ring sales data highlights its mind-boggling success

By Otto Kratky March 3, 2022

FromSoftware’s latest game, Elden Ring, has set records in the U.K. with a massively successful launch according to gamesindustry.biz. While only U.K. data is available so far, it sets the stage for a potentially record-breaking release.

According to data given to the outlet by game sales data, or GSD, Elden Ring‘s launch in the U.K. was larger than Call of Duty: Vanguard’s and Horizon Forbidden West‘s, the latter of which was outsold by Elden Ring more than 2.5 times. The FromSoftware game’s launch was the biggest for a title outside of the Call of Duty or FIFA franchises since 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2.

Three Elden Ring characters standing at a cliff.

While Elden Ring selling so many more copies than a first-party PlayStation title is impressive, the statistic shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Horizon Forbidden West is only available on PlayStation 4 and PS5 consoles, while Elden Ring is a multiplatform title, launching on PlayStation consoles as well as Xbox consoles and PC, giving the game a much larger potential user base.

Over 68% of Elden Ring‘s sales were digital, with a majority of those copies being purchased by users on Xbox or PC. For Xbox, 85% of the game’s sales were digital, trumping the 73% of digital sales on PC. On PS5 and PS4, just over half of Elden Ring‘s sales were digital.

While most of Elden Ring‘s digital sales were on Xbox, a majority of the game’s total sales have been on PlayStation consoles, with a total of 32% of the game’s U.K. sales going to Sony’s platform, followed by 30% on PC. Just 29% of Elden Ring‘s sales have been attributed to Xbox consoles. Surprisingly, very few of Elden Ring‘s sales were for the game’s PS4 version, which accounts for just 9%.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…

Gaming

Elden Ring’s first significant post-launch content is a PvP Colosseum

Four players fight in an Elden Ring colosseum.

Bandai Namco Entertainment and FromSoftware have confirmed that multiple PvP Colosseums will be added to Elden Ring as part of an update on December 7.
Although Elden Ring is the best-selling and most critically acclaimed game of 2022, its post-launch patches have primarily been focused on balance tweaks and bug fixes. Update 1.08, which drops on December 7, changes that by adding a new way for players to duel each other. Colosseums will now appear in Limgrave, Leyndell, and Caelid, where players can face off against each other. There will be three match types: 1v1 duels, 3v3 team fights, and free-for-alls where only one player can come out on top.
The update will be free to Elden Ring owners across all platforms, and a new trailer gives us a look at these new arenas and the fights that take place within them.
ELDEN RING | Free Colosseum Update Trailer
The Colosseums look like fun places for players to test new character builds, show their builds off to others, and test their skills against really experienced players. It seems like this is strictly PvP-focused content though, so players yearning for more single-player content of DLC won't be satiated just yet. Still, this is one of our first very clear indications that FromSoftware and Bandai Namco Entertainment are interested in adding significant, brand-new content to Elden Ring, which is a good sign.
Elden Ring is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The Colosseums will be added as part of Elden Ring Update 1.08, which is set to release on December 7.

Gaming

Staff picks: Why Elden Ring is our 2022 game of the year

An Elden Ring character stands on a cliff in front of text that says Game of the Year 2022.

I tried to fight it the entire year.

When I played Elden Ring in February, I immediately knew it was going to be treated as a foregone conclusion when game of the year season rolled around. While I loved FromSoftware’s open-world fantasy epic, I had plenty of gripes with it that I felt were getting overlooked in its immediate hype cycle. I urged the Digital Trends team to keep an open mind through 2022 rather than assuming it had to be No. 1 on our list come December. Such an attitude would do a disservice to the wealth of excellent games that would surprise us after its launch, from Neon White to Vampire Survivors. As the year hit its last quarter, the staff even began to rally behind Immortality, which was one spot away from the throne.

Gaming

Grieving in Elden Ring: my quest for closure in The Lands Between

Elden Ring character looking at the open-world of the game with a giant glowing tree in the background.

“Gotta say Elden Ring becomes so much less fun at the end.”

On May 24, 2022, my friend Andrew Thomas pinged me via Facebook chat with that message. While I had crammed most of the game into a single frantic week in February to review it for launch, Andrew had been plugging away at it casually and sending me his observations along the way.