UK Sales Charts: Hogwarts Legacy Apparates Back to the Top Spot

I hope all those switch players like loading screens 😬, also expected Mario RPG to do a lot better than that as well. Also where did Persona 5 Tactica finish?

The game (older versions) was discounted pretty heavily last week too in a lot of stores.

This game is unstoppable. It just keeps selling.

Didn’t expect Mario RPG to do super well, about in the right spot.
It is an old game really and a bit niche.
You would pick up Mario Wonder first or if on a budget.

apparently not worth any nomination in any game of the year category

@trev666 I think we all know why, apparently it doesn't exist in a vacuum so u can't just enjoy a good game these days. Awards across the entertainment space have been hijacked by ideology so it's not always the best/most popular game/movie that wins, unless that game complies with ESG/DEI which is why balders gate will definitely win

Still haven't played Hogwarts Legacy yet. Might get it in the future.

Also glad to see Mario RPG debut at 6! I love the original Mario RPG to pieces and the Remake is phenomenal.

Would be crazy if Hogwarts ends up selling more than cod this year.

Grabbed Hogwarts on Argos sales a few months back specifically for December and Christmas. I don't really know why I've saved it for that period but my head just keeps thinking of Christmas time everytime I see HL vids. It's a very weird feeling and I'm not even a Potter fan. Maybe its the wizard hats combined with its old fashioned buildings reminds me of Christmas in some way

@Blaze215 Most of us play games to escape the "not in a vacumn". That is never going to change no matter how hard certain people try.

@Americansamurai1 it should tbh. COD hasn't been the highest seller for a while and Hogwarts is a juggernaut

@LifeGirl Completely agree and I think everyone knows Hogwarts at least deserved a nomination, that it didn't get one will annoy a lot of people who really enjoyed the game and will harm these types of awards credibility even more so it's really counterproductive for them

@UltimateOtaku91 I dunno, man, I'm just impressed Hogwarts Legacy launched in a playable state at all on Switch.

Good to see Hogwarts still going strong. Definitely among the best of the year. I'm still in awe of just how incredibly detailed Hogwarts castle is in that game.

One of these days I need to go back and platinum it. I'm not far off from it from what I remember.

@Andy22385 yeah would be great to see other games other than Cod take the top spot.

@Blaze215 A nomination in what category? Because this was a game that looks nice at the surface level but realized has minimal depth to it past the first five hours or so. Forget ideology, it's just not that special of a game.

And Baldur's Gate will win because it's a well-crafted piece of art rather than just another empty open world.

It's a pretty solid game. It's probably my biggest surprise game this year. I'm glad the silly boycott failed miserably.

@bozz whatever your opinion of it you can't ignore the sales and a lot of other people out there absolutely love the game and it would be their game of the year so your assessment of it is completely subjective. If you don't think the most popular game of 2023 shouldn't at least get a nomination I don't know what to say

@Blaze215 Modern Warfare and Madden sell like crazy despite being messes or retreads of the previous editions, no one would put them up for these awards which award quality, not quantity sold. Slap the HP label on a bag of vomit and it'll sell well, that's not the point. This game is nowhere near the quality of the ones that got nominated for Game of the Year.

@bozz Same, it was pretty but when I was wandering around the castle and found the same puzzle thrice within 10 min I realized that there won't be much to it

Dropped it after 5h because it sadly bored me

@bozz Equating it to CoD and fifa which are just retreads when Hogwarts was made from scratch from the ground up is unfair. I do understand your argument that the games that were nominated are all better but isn't RE4 actually a retread?

This will be the game I play first when I finally get a PS5. I also went to Harry Potter Studios last Thursday (which was awesome) so I'm in the zone.

@Blaze215 You can make an average game from scratch, why would you put that on the same level as Baldur's Gate 3 or Alan Wake 2? You can keep shifting the qualifications but that still doesn't address the quality of the game which, in this case, is pretty but incredibly thin. It's a nice game but it becomes quickly apparent how lacking it is in a number of areas.

And no, I wouldn't have RE4 in the final group, I'd have any number of other games instead but none of them would be Hogwarts Legacy. I just don't think it's good enough.

@bozz I'm honestly not trying to shift the qualifications, I thought Hogwarts was a decent game, maybe 7 or 8 out of 10, I enjoyed it. But alan wake 2 I thought was boring rubbish, very little in the way of actual gameplay got about 6 hours in and was too bored to carry on. Would definitely say it's way thinner on the gameplay front than Hogwarts. So just because I think that I guess that shouldn't be nominated either? 🙂

@Blaze215 Well first off, it's hard to take you seriously if you couldn't even finish a game that's widely being lauded for it's quality in terms of writing, characterization, world building, visuals, etc. Not to mention claiming that HL was ignored simply due to ideology. Anyway, we're not getting anywhere so agree to disagree. 👍

@bozz you didn't mention gameplay in your list of Alan wakes qualities I see 😂 no worries agree to disagree, no hard feelings!

@Blaze215 sales mean nothing when it comes to awards. It's about quality. Otherwise, CoD and Marvel movies would win most awards every year.

It is a great game, so it deserves to succeed. The writers clearly have a love of the source material. Cannot wait to see they come up with once the inevitable sequel arrives.

@Blaze215 but if HL still lacks the gameplay depth, and also all the other stuff Alan Wake 2 does better than it, that still makes Alan Wake 2 a much better game than HL. Regardless of personal tastes.

It was a very strong year for games, a list of 6 or 7 nominations, taking into account PS5, PC, Xbox and Nintendo games, missing one game you liked doesn't mean its an agenda. It means there are 6 or 7 better games available that year.

I would say that The Game Awards other nominations are a bit of a mess though.

It seems Starfield sneaked in to beat out HL to it's one potential nomination, which makes it clear there is a lot more going on with other quality games this year so that some games will just miss out.

If "best adaption" ran in reverse from other media to games, then maybe it would have got a nomination for that? But it doesn't

When's the last time eafc/fifa hasn't been in top 5?

@Blaze215 just because of the character or JK's views? Also what are those abbreviations.

@DonkeyFantasy i beg to differ and i'm not a potter fan but i just had to have this game as it looked incredible and it did not let me down. Awesome game and it's one of my favorite games of the year.

Fly around on a fun broom and have fun in fascinating castles, or borefest take turns to hit each other in Baldurs Gate 3. I know which one I'd prefer regardless of no nomination or whoever gets the goty or not. These turnbased hardcore diehards ain't gonna dominate my gamer brain with their pretend boring depth

@Ravix for me anyway when I'm playing games, gameplay is by far the most important thing to me, good story etc is great too but if I want a good story I'll read a book. I know that's not the same for everyone it's just my opinion and it doesn't mean it's the right one.

@Cherip-the-Ripper google them 😂

Kinda wish Super Mario RPG would pop off, but I feel like after Mario Wonder we’re no longer gonna see every Nintendo game soar to the top. Everything in the pipeline from now on just looks like smaller games and remasters. Definitely the twilight year. PlayStation really should reveal what’s coming up for 2024 to capitalize on the slower Nintendo year and compete with that honestly pretty decent looking Xbox 2024.

@Beerheadgamer82 Harry Potter has always had a cozy Christmas charm to it especially the first 2 movies. Which is why they shown a lot at least in the US during the holidays. So it not surprising the game have the same charm.

@Beerheadgamer82 that's the thing though, it's not just die hards, it has appealed to a vast number of other gamers too. Same as Elden Ring broke out from just Souls fans the year before. Case in point, me and a bunch of other people on this very site who were complete newbies to anything related to Dungeons and Dragons or Souls games and yet preferred them to anything else that year 😱 I have even said turn based doesn't appeal to me in the past, in regard to that marvel game where it just looked silly to me. But BG3 is my game of the year, ahead of Zelda and FF16. I'll get round to playing HL at some point, and i'm glad for the developers it's done so well, as it seems to have been made with love and care, and has made HP fans very happy. But fun isn't universally measurable and if you don't think bg3 can be fun because it has turn based combat, that's fine too.

But when something a more niche breaks into the mainstream it usually gets recognition, and the reason for that is the same reason it actually succeeds in the first place: it's a great game. Clearly a game is doing something right if it brings in a bunch of people new to a genre, it doesn't make any other games objectively worse, in a vacuum, but it certainly proves its own worth. And you can't argue that its undeserving if the majority don't agree with you, because that's the point in awards, it's what the majority think deserves recognition based on their own experiences.

Surprised to see CoD knocked off the top spot so early, even if it is for Hogwarts Legacy.

@trev666
As Call of Duty shows us every year, sales =/= quality. Hogwarts Legacy was good in a lot of ways, but I didn't find it particular stellar in any way. There are just so many games out there that are better at what they do and they can't all be nominees. There may be a bit of recency bias splashed in for the Game Awards as well.

Where is your bluey review please. Asking for a friend 👀

@DonkeyFantasy Yes there are legions of us.

I would get this but honestly the story and characters looked so boring. Seems to be a game that is carried by it's open world

@trev666 it's ok. WB, Port Key and Avalanche laughing all the way to the bank. Unfortunate they don't receive the industry recognition but they surely have received the recognition from consumers. Easily in my top 3 this year.

@Ravix my frustration isn't with games coming from a more niche audience to now way more popular like Souls and now more recently BG3 turnbased has become. I genuinly really like the idea of niche becoming more popular, like being the favourite to win a goty, wish far more games were able to achieve this. The frustration I have is, its all well and good saying how much you adore a game like BG3 but then its swiftly followed up in a very snobbery way in the same comment by how much every other game is crap in comparison to BG3, almost like BG3 is the greatest thing to ever happen to gaming, its clearly not

I've always liked the argument that if a game, music album or movie sells way more, doesn't necessarily mean its far superior or better. Sometimes though you have to come to the conclusion that the reason why open world games have been so popular for so long is maybe they're just really fun to get lost in open worlds and pour so many hours into them. Just maybe on this occasion open worlds are more popular because they're better, more fun overall. I say maybe with a pinch of salt because I know some here will get very salty by this

Fine to applaud, support or praise the games you adore, nothing wrong with that, obviously. Just can't stand the snobbery against all the other games most BG3 fans have come up with this past year. The year before was Elden Ring snobbery

BG3 ain't for me clearly but I wouldn't mind at all it winning goty, as daft as this sounds coming from me. Its such a great video game success story and I genuinly love to see it

Edit. I think frustration is the wrong word, mildly annoyed is more suitable

@Beerheadgamer82 I said that BG3 being so good itself doesn't make other games objectively worse, it just simply proves its own worth. That is the exact opposite of what you gathered from my words 😅

It means that all those other games are still exactly what people wanted, it's just unlucky to be up against another that is more universally loved for providing that little bit more that the people craved. It's been an insanely good year for games all around.

My point is that BG3 earned its universal love, it isn't just people getting together saying "oh yes, we must agree because of some obscure reason, we must now lie to everyone" it's just a lot of people have collectively had the same experience with this game. And there's a tonne of people who it didn't click with too, as nothing is for everyone. It might not even win anyway, Nintendo has a massive fan base. But objectively, it probably should.

Summary: Games that earn universal acclaim, tend to do so by earning it, that is all. But it does not mean that other games are any worse for it having existed.

@Beerheadgamer82 I know exactly what you mean even though we don’t know what we mean! 😂

I can't comment on the quality of the game because I've never played it but the fanbase is absolutely massive and switch players seem to be the perfect demographic for it so I'm not surprised.

@Ravix No I get that I genuinly do. I think you misunderstood what I originally meant. The snobbery side to it all, is of the likes never seen before

BG3 being more universally loved than the rest would mean it would have to be completely destroying all other games this year in the sales departement but it hasn't. Yes BG3 is only currently available digitally on PC and PS5 but digital is by far the dominant purchase. BG3 winning goty, getting physical and Xbox releases could easily see it topping many sales charts and adding way more total numbers. Will it be amongst the best selling games this year for it to be universally loved I strongly doubt that, amongst the top 10 total sales this year maybe yes but not near the top to be universally loved

@Dodoo even I don't know what I mean sometimes😆

@Blaze215

Hogwarts Legacy is not nominated for the same reason Assassin's Creed games are also not nominated. As enjoyable as they are and as fun as HL was it was very formulaic and did not really do anything to push its Action/Adventure genre forward. Just because a thing is popular that does not mean it is the best thing ever and needs to be in the running for awards.

HogLeg was a good game, it had a great presentation, the combat was very good and the story served its purpose well, but then again so did Forspoken, and it's been shut out too.

So as we can learn: Popular does not automatically equal GOTY

Quit looking for conspiracies where non exist.

You think with the popularity of this game Warner Bros would realize that they don't have to make live services to make money.

@UltimateOtaku91 YouTuber “Switchforce” summed it up perfectly……it’s one of those games that you just wouldn’t expect to run at all on the Switch and it actually runs fairly well. But it 2023, not 2017. It’s time to stop the miracles and get with the times- get to the point where games run well and it’s just par for the course. So, if the Switch is your only platform or if you you want to play it on the go, it’s not such a bad option….

As for Mario RPG, I think most will choose Wonder over this- it hasn’t even been a month since release. I got it, but it was a last minute decision on impulse. I bet it ultimately still sells a solid 4-5 million.

@Blaze215 Its also just a 8/10 in a sea of 9's and 10's. Hogwarts is great but its not a GOTY worthy contender.

Waiting months to pay $60 for a shimmering/jaggy Switch port is why I gave up and bought a Steamdeck.

Great to see SM2 holding on so well. Greta game.

Not played anything else on that top 10

@MikeOrator Speaking off Forspoken i'm currently playing it after holding off and its actually no where as bad as i thought it would be. Granted its nothing special and the open world is pretty lifeless but the combat is pretty fun and the transversal system is really good. Compared to say Redfall i feel its much better.

Personally I found Hogwarts Legacy to be a disappointment. It's a quality game, but it just never grabbed me. The tasks seemed more tedious than fun for the most part. I stopped after about 30 hours in March and haven't come back to it since. Later on, I platinumed Forspoken and found it to be the far superior game.

Not a Potter fan at all. I tried reading the books but couldn't get into them and I've only watched one film. I absolutely loved the game, though. I can only imagine that it would be a dream game for HP fans.

Would be very surprised if Hogwarts Legacy hasn't already cleared 30m + units considering it's been in the top 10 in most global sales charts (Pys/Digital) since weeks before it even launched in Feb. Very much going to be one of the best selling games of the generation (Behind GTA 6 of course).