The Best-Selling Video Games Of The 2010s
The past decade has seen the video game landscape changed forever by 3D-as-standard, virtual reality headsets, and cloud-based gaming (no need for physical disks). While much has changed, some of our favorite pastimes haven't—here are the best-selling video games of the 2010s.
God Of War
When God of War was released for the PlayStation 4 in April 2018, it was the eighth installment in the God Of War series. While the previous installments were based loosely on Greek mythology, God Of War's eighth title is based in Norse mythology, seeing the player take on the role of either Kratos the God of War, or his son, Atreus. The pair are playable interchangeably for the first time in a God Of War game.
God Of War sold 10 million copies, more than tripling the 3 million units sold of God Of War: Ascension, the game's 2013 predecessor.
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Horizon: Zero Dawn was the first game in the Horizon video game series. Set in a world ruled by machines, the playable character is a young hunter named Aloy. Using stealth, a spear, and other ranged weapons, you must fight against the machines and reclaim the world.
Horizon: Zero Dawn also sold 10 million copies worldwide. Not bad for a first entrant by its developing studio, Guerrilla Games, which hadn't produced a title since Killzone (2004).
New Super Mario Bros. U/Deluxe
The New Super Mario Bros. U/Deluxe game was developed specifically for the Wii U, an intended successor to the Wii, created by Nintendo. The New Super Mario Bros. U game concluded the New Super Mario Bros. series and was the first game in the Super Mario series to feature HD graphics.
It became one of the Wii U's best-selling games of all time and sold 10.38 million units worldwide.
Pokémon: Let's Go Pikachu And Let's Go Eevee!
Back when Pokémon Go was all the rage, Game Freak, The Pokémon Company, and Nintendo released Let's Go Pikachu! and Let's Go Eevee! as standalone games for the Nintendo Switch console, in their first ever titles made for a home games console. This remake of the hugely-successful 1998 Game Boy Advance game sold 11.28 million copies worldwide.
Gran Turismo 5
Gran Turismo 5 sought to build on the success of Gran Turismo 4 and previous best-selling titles from the past decade. The sim racing game supported online racing for up to 16 players, featured a damage module depending on how the car was hit—it also featured over 1,000 usable cars, 29 locations, 77 tracks and the ability to generate your own track.
Gran Turismo 5 sold 11.94 million copies worldwide between its release in November 2010 and December 2019.
Fallout 4
Fallout is a highly successful, post-apocalyptic game franchise, set in a variety of environments throughout its five-game series (Fallout 5 is still yet to be announced, but is expected to be developed in 2025). Fallout 4 was set in a post-apocalyptic Boston, an area known as "The Commonwealth". Resuming control of the "sole survivor", the player must find their missing son, as well as undertake various quests to acquire experience points.
Fallout 4 sold 12 million copies worldwide since its release across multiple platforms in November 2015.
Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Animal Crossing: New Leaf is the fourth title released in the Animal Crossing series and, for the first time, sees a human player available to the game's player as they take over as mayor of the town, enacting ordinances and starting a public works project. While the remainder of the gameplay from the old titles remains the same, New Leaf's popularity comes from the brand new gameplay mode.
Animal Crossing lovers also loved New Leaf, snapping up 12.36 million copies worldwide.
EMR, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Super Mario: 3D Land
Another decade, another hit Super Mario title. Super Mario: 3D Land was released for the Nintendo 3DS console in November 2011. Combining both 2D side-scrolling gameplay that Mario fans are used to, with the modern 3D gameplay, Super Mario: 3D Land yet again features Mario attempting to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser (will she ever be rescued, is my question).
Super Mario: 3D Land sold 12.60 million copies worldwide, again proving the longevity of the Super Mario game series.
Marvel's Spider-Man
Marvel's Spider-Man was a 2018 action-adventure video game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony in September 2018 for the PS4 and later for the PS5. Spider-Man was instantly popular with fans of the Marvel comics, swinging from building to building while fighting foes. Marvel's Spider-Man became the best-selling PS4 game of all time, grossing 13.2 million sales worldwide.
Stefano Chiacchiarini '74, Shutterstock
New Super Mario Bros. 2
This is the third title in the New Super Mario Bros. series developed by Nintendo for the 3DS. New Super Mario Bros. 2 provided Mario fans with an all-too-familiar plotline, however, it focused on coin-collecting rather than the traditional series focus of fighting bosses.
The ever-popular Super Mario Bros. 2 sold 13.27 million copies worldwide.
Pokémon Omega Ruby And Alpha Sapphire
The 2014 remakes of the 2002 Gameboy Advance's Pokémon Ruby and Pokémon Sapphire, Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire were part of the sixth generation of Pokémon games. They follow the journey of a player as a Pokémon Trainer who battles the eight Gym Leaders of the Hoenn region.
FIFA 13
The first FIFA title to make a top 40 best-selling list in the history of video games, FIFA 13 is one of the best-selling FIFA games in history. It sold 14.5 million copies worldwide, with more than 1 million copies being sold in the first 48 hours of its UK release.
Super Smash Bros. For Nintendo 3DS And Wii U
Super Smash Bros. was released for the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U consoles in September 2014. It was the fourth installment in the Super Smash Bros. series, which focuses on fighting bosses as a method to rescuing Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser.
The game—designed to strike a balance between Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl, sold more than 14.9 million copies worldwide.
Ismail Sadiron Pictures, Shutterstock
Monster Hunter: World
This is the fifth entry in the action-RPG series Monster Hunter, developed by Capcom. Monster Hunter: World has a slightly repetitive nature, with the main character (a Hunter) gaining loot by defeating monsters seen in the game. Released in January of 2018, Monster Hunter: World sold 15 million copies worldwide.
Super Mario Odyssey
Super Mario Odyssey explores the famed plot of Mario saving Princess Peach through a new ally called Cappy (a hat that's gained sentience), allowing Mario to control other characters and objects in a journey across kingdoms to save Princess Peach.
Proving to be yet another successful title in the Super Mario game series, Odyssey sold 15.38 million copies worldwide.
Pokémon Black And White
The 2010 release of Pokémon Black Version and Pokémon White Version saw the fifth generation of Pokémon arrive on the Nintendo DS. The titles were released in Japan in 2010, and in Europe and North America in 2011. Pokémon Black and White introduced 156 new Pokémon and several new modes, including: seasonal cycle, rotation battles, triple battles, and fully animated Pokémon sprites.
Pokémon Black and White sold 1 million pre-orders and was the fastest DS title to reach 5 million sales. In total, the title reached 15.64 million sales worldwide.
Peter Placzek, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a crossover fighting title where the player controls one of 89 playable characters, using attacks to weaken their opponent. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate features Nintendo characters and many others from third-party franchises like Pokémon.
Released in December of 2018, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate sold 15.7 million copies worldwide.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
The fourth title in the highly successful Drake's Uncharted series developed by Naughty Dog sees Drake (now retired) drawn back into treasure hunting by his newly-introduced brother. You play as Drake, battling enemies from a private military contractor to find hidden treasure.
Building on the success of Uncharted 3, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End sold 16 million copies worldwide.
The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild
The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild is set at the conclusion of the Zelda timeline, wherein the player controls Link, setting out to find a kidnapped Zelda and stop Calamity Canon from destroying the world. Embracing the common open-world structure of gaming in the late 2010s, Breath Of The Wild can be played in a non-linear fashion, allowing for ultimate experimentation and exploration.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild sold 16.04 million copies worldwide.
Pokémon: Sun And Moon
The first installments in the seventh generation of Pokémon were Pokémon Sun and Moon, released in November 2016. The games see the player's Pokémon trainer travel to Alola (a region based on Hawaii) to complete a series of challenges against other trainers that gradually increase in difficulty. The game featured 81 new Pokémon, new moves, new alien creatures, and new battle mechanics.
Another success for the Pokémon franchise saw the game sell 16.17 million copies worldwide.
Pokémon X And Y
Pokémon X and Y were simultaneously released on October 12, 2013, as the first installments in the sixth generation of the Pokémon game series. The many significant evolutions of these titles included 72 new Pokémon species, character customization, and completely rendered 3D graphics. The titles were so hotly anticipated that they sold 4 million copies in their first weekend of release.
In total, Pokémon X and Y sold 16.42 million copies worldwide—the highest sales figures of any Pokémon game that decade.
The Last Of Us
The action-adventure game that spawned a franchise, The Last of Us sees players take control of Joel, a human smuggler who must smuggle a teenage girl across a post-apocalyptic United States using every measure at his disposal to keep her safe. Released for the PlayStation 3 in June 2013 and for the PlayStation 4 in July 2014, The Last of Us was one of the most popular post-apocalypse games of the 2010s.
It sold 17 million copies worldwide and has spawned a sequel game, and a television series adaptation that was released last year, starring Pedro Pascal.
Mario Kart 7
Yet another entry for Mario Kart on our list is the seventh installment in the Mario Kart racing series. Players can play as one of 17 playable characters from the Mario universe, facing off against others in either local or online matches of up to eight players. New to the game are hand-gliding attachments for the karts, first-person driving, underwater driving, and fully-customizable vehicles.
Mario Kart 7 sold 18.47 million copies worldwide and was the best-selling game on the Nintendo 3DS.
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Call of Duty: Ghosts was developed as a standalone title in the Call of Duty franchise. Released in 2013, Ghosts marked a significant departure from what Call of Duty fans were expecting and used to in the CoD world—namely because it introduced futurism in a way that other titles hadn't pushed as hard.
Despite this departure from mainstream Call of Duty storylines, the game performed well against other titles in the first-person shooter category, selling a whopping 19 million copies worldwide.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
This is the third game in The Witcher series and the sequel to the 2011 action role-playing game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Taking place in a fantasy world based on Slavic mythology, The Witcher 3 sees players controlling Geralt of Rivia, a monster-slayer for hire. Playing through the single-player mode, Geralt battles against foes, interacts with non-player characters, and collects experience points and gold, which enhance his abilities as the game goes on.
Building on the success of The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt sold 20 million copies worldwide.
Borderlands 2
Set on the planet Pandora, Borderlands 2 picks up where Borderlands left off, leaving our playable characters in charge of defeating the main antagonist, Handsome Jack, before he can unlock the powers of a new Vault. There are main missions to complete, as well as optional side quests, along with exploring the planet's open-world style layout.
Borderlands 2 sold 22 million copies worldwide following its September 2012 release.
FIFA 18
The second FIFA game on our list! The 2010s were a good year for the soccer simulation game created by Electronic Arts. Much like FIFA 13 five years prior, FIFA 18 featured a continuation of a player career mode from 2017 entitled The Journey. Much of the rest of the game is unchanged from the general premise of FIFA titles. Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo was on the cover.
FIFA 18 sold 24 million copies worldwide and as of 2023, was the best-selling FIFA game of all time.
dronepicr, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Kinect Adventures
Also selling an astonishing 24 million copies worldwide was Microsoft's Kinect Adventures!—a sports simulator that relied on the integration of the Kinect motion capture camera and technology, first launched by Microsoft for their Xbox consoles in 2010. Kinect represented a giant leap forward in motion capture technology for video games and was quickly followed by PlayStation Move, Sony's answer to Kinect.
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
The sequel to Call of Duty: Black Ops was always going to perform well in the game sales charts. The ninth game in the franchise and the successor to one of the most popular Call of Duty games to be set in a historical setting, Black Ops II sees players play the role of special forces operators Alex Mason and Frank Woods, in two alternate timelines taking place in 1962 and 2025.
Released on November 12, 2012, Black Ops II narrowly missed out on the sales record of its predecessor, selling 24.2 million copies worldwide.
Call Of Duty: Black Ops
Set during the Cold War in the 1960s, players are introduced to special forces operative Alex Mason, a "black ops" soldier performing clandestine operations for the United States Government. He is deployed to many theaters around the world in an attempt to stop the Soviet Union from unleashing chemical weapons across the United States.
Within 24 hours of its release, Call of Duty: Black Ops had sold more than 5.6 million copies. It would eventually sell 26.2 million copies worldwide as Call of Duty fans flocked to the refreshed title with abandon.
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Modern Warfare 2 players had to wait two years for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 to hit the shelves. Picking up where the old game left off in many ways, Modern Warfare 3 saw the return of old characters and the creation of a new playable character, Yuri, despite mainly centering around Task Force 141 and their fight against Vladimir Makarov.
Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 million copies in its first 24 hours and grossed more than $400 million, making it the largest entertainment launch ever. In total, the game sold 26.5 million copies worldwide.
Terraria
Terraria is one of those games that does bewilderingly well in the sales charts. It's an action-adventure game that seeks to offer creativity and fun to its players, without offering anything too complicated. Focusing on building, crafting, mining, combat, and survival, Terraria offers 2D-sprite visuals similar to the SNES.
Despite its primitive look, Terraria is one of the best-selling video games of all time, grossing a stunning 27 million copies worldwide from December 2011 to December, 2019.
Diablo III
The third game in the Diablo series takes place 20 years after the conclusion of Diablo II and sees players attempting to defeat Diablo and save the world from Hell in this open-world RPG.
Diablo III sold over 3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours of its release on PC, becoming the fastest-selling PC game in history. It would go on to sell 30 million copies worldwide.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim takes place 200 years after the events of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and sees players controlling a main character, the Dragonborn, in an attempt to save the world from Alduin the World Eater, a dragon that's prophesied to destroy it. Skyrim was one of the most successful Elder Scrolls games, winning dozens of "Game Of The Year" awards.
Alongside its critical acclaim, Skyrim sold 30 million copies worldwide and is widely viewed as one of the best fantasy games ever created.
Mario Kart 8
One thing I've learned is that if a Mario game isn't in the top five (or at least top ten) of the best-selling games of pick-a-decade, then the numbers can't be right. True to form, Mario Kart 8 found its way into the top five best-selling games of the 2010s. Nintendo released Mario Kart 8 in May 2014 for the Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo Switch. While the game follows much of the same premise as previous Mario kart racing games, it does come with new racing modes like Grand Prix, and allows players to drive on the walls and ceilings.
Mario Kart 8, perhaps predictably, is the best-selling Nintendo Switch and Wii U game of all time and sold 31.4 million copies worldwide.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG)
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) has an unusual premise: Players parachute onto an island, search for other players, and attempt to end them. The battleground map shrinks continuously to force encounters and the last person standing wins. The battle royale style game is based on a modification made by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene, an Irish video game developer, to other games.
First released for Windows and Android before being released for other consoles, PUBG sold a staggering 60 million copies worldwide.
Grand Theft Auto V
The much-anticipated Grand Theft Auto V was released on September 17, 2013 and like other GTA games before it, it sold spectacularly within the first 24 hours, selling 11.21 million units. Following a similar premise to other GTA games, Grand Theft Auto V combined heist-mission gameplay with an open-world element to great success. It was exactly what GTA players had come to expect from the franchise, with its fair share of criminality and unbridled violence attached.
Alongside its more than 11 million copies sold in the first 24 hours, GTA V is the second best-selling video game of all time, selling 115 million copies worldwide by the end of 2019, and more than 200 million copies worldwide in total.
Minecraft
Minecraft? Seriously? Yep. Minecraft. The best-selling video game of all time. It was released in November of 2011 by Mojang Studios. Players explore the world of Minecraft, made up of voxels (the 3D counterpart to a pixel), allowing players to discover raw materials and extract them, create earthworks, build structures and machines, and even compete against other players (depending on the game mode). The massive open-concept nature of the game contributes to its success by being endlessly playable.
Despite launching in 2011, Minecraft still has around 140 million active users worldwide as of 2023, while it sold 180 million copies from 2011 to December 2019, it has sold around 300 million copies worldwide. A stunning total for something that appears so 'last gen' and simplistic.
Alex Photo Stock, Shutterstock
Fallout 76 Is A Flop
Fallout 76 was released to much fanfare in 2018, with Fallout fans excited to get their hands on a new game. However, developer Bethesda played the old switcheroo on fans, making it an online-only game. When the game dropped, it was filled with bugs that made it almost unplayable.
Couple this with the fact that Bethesda advertised a Fallout 76 canvas bag and "T-51 helmet" as part of the "Power Armor Edition" for $200, as well as a pre-release DLC version of the game. Both the helmet and canvas bag were seemingly made of cheap materials and so, so much Styrofoam. Fans were outraged. Some even launched a class action lawsuit against Bethesda, to which Bethesda responded by releasing a coupon that could be claimed.
These were some of the best-selling video games of the 2010s. How many of these classics from the decade do you remember? Did you get in on the Fallout 76 lawsuit? Let us know your favorite game from the 2010s in the comments below.
.jpg){kind=link}
