‘Hogwarts Legacy’ set to break ‘Call Of Duty’ sales stranglehold

nme.com:

Hogwarts Legacy is set to top the US video game sales charts for 2023, breaking a long stretch of Call Of Duty titles.According to Mat Piscatella, the executive director & video game industry analyst at Circana, who spoke to IGN, this is a combination of both Hogwarts Legacy selling extremely well throughout the year (along with a boost from a recent Nintendo Switch port) and the fact that Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3‘s sales are behind Modern Warfare 2, despite Modern Warfare 3 being the second best-selling game of 2023.If Hogwarts Legacy stays at the top of the charts, then this year will be the first year since 2009 that the charts haven’t been topped by either a Call Of Duty game or a Rockstar Games title (in 2013, Grand Theft Auto V topped the list, and in 2018 Red Dead Redemption 2 topped the list).NME reviewed Hogwarts Legacy, stating that the game can “only offer a facsimile: a world that, although ostensibly populated, feels lifeless and doesn’t let you have any real impact on it.”“Hogwarts Legacy is fun and manages to get a lot of things right, but it already feels somewhat dated, no doubt a hangover from the six-year development cycle,” the review reads.“It’s a stunning way to experience Hogwarts and the surrounding area and is probably the best representation for fans of the universe, regardless of the medium.

Honestly, this is an exceptional piece of fan service and a loving recreation that for performance reasons and dated design, doesn’t quite come together,” it concludes.In other gaming news, a new Assassin’s Creed Mirage update has introduced New Game Plus to the game.