2023 has been an incredible year for games so far, and with half a year still left to go, this could end up being one of, if not the best year in gaming ever. Fans have had faithful remakes of beloved classics, sequels to some of the best games of all time, exciting new Indie experiences, and some phenomenal breakout new IPs. It's a good time to be into video games. But despite the constant onslaught of new games this year, there's one that certainly hasn't flown under the radar, and that's Hogwarts Legacy.
Released back in February of this year, Hogwarts Legacy was the long-awaited first truly open-world RPG in the Harry Potter franchise. And though the franchise's creator refuses to stop shooting herself and the series in the foot with her hateful remarks, Hogwarts Legacy still managed to be a successful video game and then some. Currently, Hogwarts Legacy is the best-selling game of the year, selling over 15 million copies as of the start of May and bringing in at least $ 1billion in revenue. Hogwarts Legacy is an unprecedented and unexpected success, but it isn't the only major AAA title to do big numbers this year.
How Hogwarts Legacy's Sales Compare to Other AAA 2023 Releases
The first big AAA video game release in 2023 was the disappointingly bad Forspoken. Though official numbers haven't been released yet, Square Enix wasted no time in labeling the game as a failure, mentioning in March that Forspoken's sales were "lacklustre," and that they put the company's financial plans under serious risk. Thankfully, January 2023 wasn't all bad though, with the great Dead Space Remake launching just a few days later. Again, official sales numbers aren't available for Dead Space either, but it was the best-selling game in the UK for a little while after release.
Hogwarts Legacy then reared its head in early February, and it's proceeded to dominate the sales charts ever since. Within just its first two weeks, Hogwarts Legacy sold over 12 million copies and raked in over $850 million. And that was just covering the next-gen consoles and PC platforms it initially launched on. Resident Evil 4 Remake was the biggest release of March and ended up being quite the success story, selling 4 million copies in its first two weeks, which makes it the second fastest-selling game in the franchise.
April saw the release of both Dead Island 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Rather surprisingly, given the game's history of development hell, Dead Island 2 actually sold quite well, managing to ship 2 million copies in its first month of release, making it the biggest launch in publisher Deep Silver's history. Though official numbers haven't been revelaed yet, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has seemingly performed very well, becoming the top-selling game of April despite only being available for two days of the month. It's also believed that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor surpassed Fallen Order's sales by 30%, even though its physical copy sales were lower.
Hogwarts Legacy got another chance to earn some big money at the start of May, releasing on Xbox One and PS4. On the day of release, Warner Bros. put out the statistics mentioned up top, so the $1billion earned doesn't even include any additional PS4 or Xbox One sales. But there's one game that has the power to dethrone Hogwarts Legacy this year, and that's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Tears of the Kingdom sold an eye-watering 10 million copies in just three days, making it the fastest-selling Nintendo game of all time. And though no official figures have come out since, Tears of the Kingdom is still battling it out with Hogwarts Legacy over the top spot on the monthly charts.
For comparison, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum - which also released in May - sold just 10,000 copies in its initial release window. But the year is far from over yet. June saw a number of contenders enter the ring, with Street Fighter 6 surpassing 2 million sold copies, Final Fantasy 16 hitting 3 million, and Diablo 4 selling an incredible total of over 9.5 million copies. And there's plenty of time left for these sales to grow.
Hogwarts Legacy is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with a Switch release scheduled for November 14, 2023.