It’s safe to say that the gaming industry’s obsession with live-service titles and microtransactions won’t wane anytime soon. However, the remarkable success ofRemnant 2has shown that there’s still a substantial market for smaller, more contained experiences.Remnant 2‘s sales have been so remarkable, in fact, that the game managed to dethroneDiablo 4last month, skyrocketing to the very top of the July list of bestsellers.
This information comes fromMat Piscatella, a renowned gaming industry analyst who often posts sales information on his Twitter account. Piscatella’s stats summarize sales data from the Nintendo eShop, PlayStation, Steam, and Xbox platforms, ranking games based on their revenue. This isn’t a huge surprise, sinceRemnant 2moved over one million copies in four daysafter its July 25 launch. That said, it does show something very important.
https://twitter.com/MatPiscatella/status/1693627938569097422
Not every new game needs to be a live service bonanza
Remnant 2developer Gunfire Games already promisedthat there’s more content coming down the line. But the game doesn’t have a permanent loot treadmill, and it doesn’t attempt to commandeer all of its players’ time. Instead, it’s an AA production that delivers no microtransactions and doesn’t rely on time-gated content to keep players coming back. Its success is based purely on its merits as a game.
ObviouslyDiablois a far more popular and renowned franchise than Gunfire Games’Remnant. YetDiablo 4‘s shoddy seasonal offeringis sure to have played a role in allowingRemnant 2to beat it in sales. Additionally, Piscatella reports thatRemnant 2is now the 18th best-selling new game of 2023. We’ll have to see how many players return to the game as it rolls out downloadable content in the future.
Diablo 4is still going to be a more performant title with a longer financial tail for its developer, but the community is clearly eager for games likeRemnant 2. Hopefully the industry will deliver more of them in due time.
