Tears of the Kingdom tops the UK boxed charts for the third week, LOTR Gollum enters at 6th
Zelda’s sales dropped 50% but is still “comfortably” top
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has topped the UK physical game charts for the third week running.
According to GfK (as reported by GamesIndustry.biz), the critically acclaimed latest Zelda game saw sales drop 50% week-on-week, but still “comfortably” outsold the second placed game, FIFA 23.
The sole new entry in the top 10 this week was The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which charted in 6th place.
GamesIndustry notes that while this is a “weak launch” for the game, it did sell more than Lego 2K Drive did the previous week.
The positioning of Tears of the Kingdom and Gollum highlights the stark contrast in how each game has been received.
Critical reception to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has been overwhelmingly positive, with the game currently sitting on a Metacritic score of 95.
According to Nintendo, the game sold 10 million copies worldwide in its first three days, making it the fastest-selling Zelda game in history and the fastest-selling Nintendo game for any system in Europe and the Americas.
Conversely, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is the lowest rated game of the year on both major aggregation sites Metacritic and OpenCritic, with The Guardian labelling it “a derivative, uninteresting and fundamentally broken stealth action adventure that fails to capture anything interesting about Tolkien’s fiction.”
Further reading
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is the worst reviewed game of 2023
The negative reception led to developer Daedalic Entertainment publishing an apology for delivering what it called an “underwhelming experience”.
“We acknowledge and deeply regret that the game did not meet the expectations we set for ourselves or for our dedicated community,” the statement read. “Please accept our sincere apologies for any disappointment this may have caused.”
