Far Cry 5 UK launch is the biggest in Far Cry history Strong Easter sales all round for the boxed games market as Ubisoft ends March on a high

Christopher Dring Head of Games B2B Sunday 1st April 2018 Share this article Share

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Despite releasing in the first quarter of the year, Far Cry 5 is the fastest selling game in the franchise's history (in the UK, anyway).

It's a well received game and has had a strong launch campaign. But it's also arrived during one of the quietest starts to the year we've seen for console games, and has capitalised on that fact - Far Cry 5 is comfortably the biggest name on the schedule for the first six months of the year, and the biggest launch of 2018 to-date.

It also happens to be the most successful game to ever launch during 'week 13', beating the previous record holder - BioShock Infinite.

In addition, the PS4 version of the game is the sixth biggest launch of a Ubisoft game on an individual format in UK chart history. The PS4 version accounted for 60% of the game's sales.

Note: this is just boxed sales. Digital sales are not included.

It means last week's No.1, the Xbox One exclusive Sea of Thieves, drops to No.3. The game suffered a 52% drop in sales, which is actually not that bad for a AAA console game.

It was the Easter week, and therefore we witnessed a lot of price activity on software, which has resulted in a number of titles spiking in sales week-on-week and rising up the charts.

The No.2 title is FIFA 18, which saw sales rise 61%. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe overtakes five games to make No.4 (sales up 39%), while PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds on Xbox One rounds off the Top Five after a 98% sales increase.

There are actually three Xbox One exclusives in the Top Ten. Forza Motorsport 7 shot back into the Top 40 after some price activity, and returns to the charts at No.9.

Other big titles such as Assassin's Creed Origins (No.8) and Call of Duty: WWII (No.6), also rose up the charts with a 61% and 100% increase in sales respectively.

It was a good week for Switch, too. Alongside Mario Kart 8: Deluxe, Super Mario Odyssey sales rose 30% (although drops a place to No.11), and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild rises 26% in sales (but drops from No.16 to No.18).

Sticking with Nintendo, the big release of last week Detective Pikachu on 3DS had a far better second week - which is a rare sight indeed. Sales rose 76% and the game is now at No.15 in the charts (up from No.23).

The other new game of last week, EA's new IP A Way Out, drops to No.7 after a 61% slide in sales.

Here is the UKIE/GfK Top Ten for the week ending March 31st.