Despite Fallout 76’s rocky critical reception, it seems that, sales-wise, it hasn’t been a complete disaster. As reported by Gamespot, market research firm The NPD Group’s report of US game sales in November says Bethesda’s latest foray into the Wasteland was the fourth best-selling game last month.
Fallout 76 was beaten to the top spot by Battlefield 5, but also fell behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2, both of which came out in October. It’s worth noting that Bethesda doesn’t share digital game sales, which may have boosted its figures somewhat, but there are still some worrying details to take away from the report.
Chief among those is that Fallout 76 didn’t manage to outsell Rockstar’s previous game. Red Dead Redemption 2 sales have, by all accounts, been very impressive, but I’m actually referring to Grand Theft Auto V. The NPD Group report that the outing to Los Santos sold more copies in 2018 than Fallout 76 (although it’s worth noting that Bethesda’s offering has only been available for a few weeks).
The report also notes that Red Dead Redemption 2 sold 40% more copies in two months than its predecessor has sold in its entire lifetime. Elsewhere, Black Ops 4 has held onto its top spot as the best-selling game of 2018.
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The sales info is only likely to compound Bethesda’s recent woes. The company is currently facing lawsuits over the release of the game. In particular, players have been complaining about Fallout 76’s Power Armor edition, in a phenomenon that I’m personally referring to as ‘bag-gate’.