The newest installment in the Resident Evil franchise, Resident Evil: Village, has taken the number 1 spot in the UK physical game sales chart almost three weeks since being released. This is all despite a substantial drop in sales week to week. While May wasn’t a huge month for video games, RE: Village still managed to beat out a number of potentially good games in the UK.
Resident Evil: Village is the most recent game in Capcom’s Resident Evil series of horror survival games dating all the way back to 1996 on the PlayStation 1. The Resident Evil franchise is Capcom’s best-selling video game series, with over 110 million units being sold online as of March 31, 2021. It is also the best-selling horror genre video game of all time. The Resident Evil films loosely based on the games are also the highest-grossing video game franchise in the horror and zombie genre. Resident Evil: Village has been a continued success for the series, having sold more than three million copies worldwide in the first four days of release. This makes RE: Village the third fastest-selling title, tying with the Resident: Evil 2 remake in 2019.
Resident Evil: Village is having a great release, having sold a huge number of units worldwide, including having sold a huge amount of physical copies in the UK. In a recent article by GamesIndustry.biz Resident Evil: Village was revealed to have beaten out the new release Miitopia on the Nintendo Switch in the UK. While Mass Effect: Legendary Edition was the leading physical sales title on the week of release, in its second week it dropped down to third place. This allowed Resident Evil: Village to take the top place. Over 44% of these sales were for the PS4 and 29% were for the PS5.
These UK numbers follow Resident Evil: Village's initial, strong sales. The game sold nearly 150,000 units for the PS4 and the PS5 in Japan from May 3 to May 9, 2021. These were the first and fourth spots for sales in Japan for that week. One of Capcom’s other big franchises, Monster Hunter Rise on the Nintendo Switch was in the second spot, selling 68,115 copies despite initially releasing back on March 26.
It goes to show that when Capcom releases a game, it makes some serious waves. Whether it’s a new Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, or Resident Evil, the Japanese game studio can’t seem to go wrong recently. Horror genre fans should make sure to take the time to try out Resident Evil: Village, even if it’s just to see what all the hype is about.
Source: GameIndustry.biz