The Witcher 3 Just Became One Of The Top Games Of All Time
The Witcher 3 has become one of the best-selling games ever, with over 50 million copies sold.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, CD Projekt RED’s (CDPR) universally acclaimed open-world RPG, has now sold over 50 million copies worldwide, which is enough for the game to stand tall among other best-sellers, such as Grand Theft Auto V, Mario Kart 8, and the first Pokemon game.
As reported by Kotaku, CDPR announced that The Witcher 3 had sold more than 50 million copies since the game’s launch in 2015, which is an impressive sales figure in itself. But it becomes even more impressive when you compare The Witcher 3 with some of the other gaming titles and franchises of that time. Based on the publicly available data, The Witcher 3 is currently the ninth best-selling game in video game history, outselling Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow games by less than 3 million units.
Making it to the Top 10 in gaming history certainly isn’t an easy task, and CDPR has every reason to celebrate the success of The Witcher 3. The game now competes against titles such as Diablo III, The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild, GTA: San Andreas, Borderlands 2, and Red Dead Redemption II, which is currently ahead of The Witcher 3 by some 3 million units sold. And it’s quite plausible for the two to swap positions since CDPR just recently dropped the next-gen update for The Witcher 3 game, which has once again boosted its sales.
The number one game on the list is Minecraft, with nearly 240 million copies sold, followed by Grand Theft Auto V, which sold over 180 million copies. Both games could be credited, at least to an extent, with keeping the Xbox 360, a discontinued but supported Microsoft product, very much alive. Both titles are still available on Microsoft’s digital storefront, though GTA V Online did pull the plug on its Xbox 360 servers.
It’s not likely for The Witcher 3 to ever actively compete against the two aforementioned titles, but just being so close to the top is a success in itself.
The Witcher 3 received universal acclaim for the PC, PlayStation, and Xbox versions of the game and generally favorable reviews for the Nintendo Switch version. The game was highly praised for its in-game world, narrative, combat, and customization and upgrade systems. However, it was also criticized for technical issues that marred it from launch.
Many called the in-game animations stiff and pointed toward progression-hindering bugs. However, these were mostly patched out, and the game’s technical issues were soon overshadowed by its many achievements.
The Witcher 3 aside, CDPR is also working on a whole new The Witcher trilogy, a Cyberpunk sequel—not to be confused with the upcoming DLC—and a brand-new IP. Considering the Cyberpunk 2077 fiasco and the financial difficulties the bad launch has brought, it is highly unlikely for CPDR to over-extend and rush things. They’re likely going to take their time developing and testing new titles before their official release, which isn’t all that assuring, considering that it took them eight years to finish Cyberpunk 2077 and another two to make the game playable.
