Hogwarts Legacy has been dethroned from a UK game sales chart after more than a month's worth of dominance. This development arrives days after Hogwarts Legacy surpassed a British sales record held by Elden Ring in yet another major testament to its commercial success.
Avalanche Software's hit RPG has been leading software sales in the home country of Harry Potter—among many others—ever since it released in early access on February 7, followed by a full-fledged launch three days later. Its very debut was already a wild success in the UK, where Hogwarts Legacy broke a 22-year-old sales record immediately upon release.
That dominance has now come to an end, with latest GfK data revealing Hogwarts Legacy has been dethroned as the best-selling UK game by WWE 2K23. 2K's latest wrestling game soared to the top of the new rankings over the last weekend, claiming the first spot with five days to spare, seeing how it released on March 17.
As for the rest of the UK rankings for the week ending March 18, the arrival of WWE 2K23 has simply moved each of last week's top five down a spot. The new wrestling game and Hogwarts Legacy are hence followed by FIFA 23, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Metroid Prime Remastered, and God of War Ragnarok, in that order. Minecraft and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 retained their spots at seventh and eighth, respectively. Super Mario Odyssey and Animal Crossing: New Horizons concluded this latest top 10, the latter by retaining its ranking, and the former by jumping up from 13th. Switch exclusive Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, a highly anticipated prequel to PlatinumGames' popular action-adventure series, debuted in the UK at the 21st spot.
GfK's British data only reflects physical game sales in the country, but that's not to take away from the massive success that Hogwarts Legacy has been enjoying so far. Even so, these newly updated rankings aren't the first indicator that the global Harry Potter craze is now gradually coming to an end, with recent Steam data suggesting the Hogwarts Legacy player count had a dramatic drop on PC over the last month.
Hogwarts Legacy is still likely to see a sales resurgence in the coming months, as the game has so far only released on half of its target platforms. According to previous financial disclosures, the Xbox One, PS4, and Switch—that are all yet to receive the new Harry Potter RPG—boast a combined installed base of nearly 300 million units. That's a massive market that Hogwarts Legacy has yet to tap into, so future sales spikes are well within the realm of possibility.
Hogwarts Legacy is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with PS4 and Xbox One versions launching May 5 and a Switch port releasing July 25.
Source: GfK
