Hogwarts Legacy topped European game sales in the first half of 2023

Hogwarts Legacy was comfortably Europe’s best-selling game in the first half of 2023.

Sales of Warner’s fantasy title, which was released in February, were 69% higher than those recorded by Elden Ring in the first six months of 2022, when it also released in February and was Europe’s biggest game.

That’s according to GSD data published on GamesIndustry.biz, which covers physical game sales from major European markets and digital sales from most leading publishers, excluding Nintendo and 505 Games.

Despite only being released in June, Diablo 4 was the second biggest game of the year. Activision Blizzard said on Wednesday that over 10 million players “experienced” Diablo 4 worldwide during its launch month, making it the World of Warcraft studio’s fastest-selling title to date.

FIFA 23 took the No.3 spot on the European sales chart for the first six months of the year, with sales up 24% compared to FIFA 22‘s during the same period in 2022.

Despite being released in May and the fact that data doesn’t include digital sales for Nintendo’s games, Switch exclusive The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom charted at No.4. GSD said it was the best-selling physical game during the first half of the year.

Grand Theft Auto 5 came in at No.5 on the sales chart, followed by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, NBA 2K23 and Resident Evil 4.

76.1 million console and PC games were sold in Europe during the six-month period, which was up slightly year-over-year.

Physical sales accounted for 38.2% of overall sales (down 9% year-over-year) and digital sales for 61.8% (up 7% year-over-year).

The UK was Europe’s biggest market for game sales (15.3 million), ahead of Germany (14 million), France (11.1 million), Spain (5.4 million) and Italy (4.9 million).