It’s Tom Nook’s World, We’re Just Living In It
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is one of the best-selling Nintendo Switch games of all time, second only to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, so it’s no wonder that the week ending on January 1st saw it topping the UK sales charts once again according to GFK. It’s a good game. It still gave us a shock to glance down the chart and realize that it beat out Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, Immortals: Phenyx Rising, and Pokemon Sword, among others. DOOM 2016 wasn’t even on the list. That’s a lot of big franchises and hot new IPs left waiting for the animals to finish crossing. We guess everyone really needed a break on a desert island, which is totally understandable. This year has been rough. A digital island getaway with cute animal friends is just what the doctor ordered.
Number 2 on the chart was FIFA 21, number 3 was the aforementioned Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and number 4 was Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. After that came Just Dance 2021, Cold War, and Minecraft. Slots 8 through 10 were taken up by Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Grand Theft Auto V, and New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Maybe what we should really be taking away from this list is that people really love Mario. Again, we’re not sure we can blame them–if there was ever a year to embrace polished gameplay and cute, brightly-colored graphics over complex, troubled characters and intricate plotting, 2021 is that year.
Cyberpunk 2077 sits down at number 15 on the list and appears to be dropping lower. Who knows how low it will end up? Meanwhile, Legend of The Zelda: Breath of the Wild is at number 16 and climbing steadily. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is also on the rise at number 28. We have no way of proving this is because of Sephiroth’s arrival, but we are choosing to believe the facts are connected.
Which of these have you bought? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.
