Animal Crossing: New Horizons breaks UK sales records

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the latest instalment in the Animal Crossing series, has officially smashed several UK sales records and is sitting comfortably at the top of the charts.

As per GamesIndustry.biz, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold more copies in its first week than any previous Animal Crossing title has. In fact, New Horizons has sold more copies than every previous instalment in the series combined, including spin-off games.

Despite only being out for 2 days, as it launched on March 20th, 2020, New Horizons has seen a 3.5 times larger launch than its predecessor, Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS.

New Horizons is also the biggest single game launch on Nintendo Switch since the console launched back in early 2017. It’s only beaten out by the combined sales of Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield.

To make things more impressive, these are only numbers from physical sales of the game. Digital download numbers aren’t included and, given the current state of the world during the coronavirus pandemic, it wouldn’t be surprising to find that the digital sales bolster New Horizons’ sale records even further.

As mentioned earlier, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is currently sitting pretty at the top of the UK boxed charts. Even Doom Eternal, which launched on the same day as New Horizons, couldn’t beat the game’s success – but has settled for a worthy second place.

GIBiz also reports that Doom Eternal’s physical launch sales are “roughly a third smaller” than the game’s predecessor but, like Nintendo, Bethesda doesn’t share digital download figures, so Doom Eternal’s launch could be much better than reported.

You can find the GfK Top Ten list for the week ending March 21st below.

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons
2. Doom Eternal
3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
4. FIFA 20
5. Mario Kart 8: Deluxe
6. Grand Theft Auto 5
7. Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy
8. Forza Horizon 4
9. Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled
10. Red Dead Redemption 2