MultiVersus was July's biggest-selling game, ousting Elden Ring from the top spot
From Software's RPG still leads for the year, however.
Warner Bros' character brawler MultiVersus has taken the industry by storm since it arrived in open beta last month. But the scale of its popularity was recently confirmed by analytics group NPD, which reported that Multiversus was the top-selling video game of last month, despite only landing on Steam on the 19th.
MultiVersus is a free-to-play game, but alongside in-game microtransactions, Warner Bros also sells an array of Founders Packs for the game, which give players "character tickets" used for unlocking fighters. It was these Founders Packs which apparently launched MultiVersus to the top of the sales charts.
The success of MultiVersus knocked Elden Ring down to second place, only the second time this year that From Software's fantasy phenomenon hasn't been in top spot. The massive RPG remains the overall top-seller for the year, however, with Namco Bandai reporting the game has sold almost 17 million copies since its launch in February.
There's one important caveat to these rankings. While NPD's chart takes into account both physical and digital sales for most games, digital sales are not registered for the two Nintendo titles on the list, namely Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and the eternally popular Mario Kart 8, placed at fourth and seventh on the list. It also doesn't track Xbox and Digital sales for MLB: The Show 22, which ranks sixth.
In any case, it's impressive stuff from developer Player First Games, although having every single character from everybody's childhood available to play as has probably helped MultiVersus gain traction. Nonetheless, it's is an undeniably solid brawler too. In her recent review, Mollie said "MultiVersus has done a bang-up job of laying the foundations for a fantastic platform fighter that has the potential to blossom into something amazing".