Sony revealed God of War Ragnarök is now the fastest-selling first-party game for PlayStation.
According to VGC, Sony announced God of War Ragnarök's historic milestone on the company's official Twitter account, with the sequel allegedly selling over 5.1 million copies throughout its first week. The reported number placed God of War Ragnarök well over the previous record holders, Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part 2 and Insomniac Games' Marvel's Spider-Man, which sold 4 million and 3.3 million copies in their first three days, respectively. Ragnarök also rapidly overtook the pace set by 2018's God of War reboot, which sold 3.1 million units throughout the month it was released.
A previous report additionally noted the sequel sold more copies in a single day than the God of War reboot's best-performing sales week. GfK Chart-Track's senior client director, Dorian Bloch, supported the claim and believed Ragnarök's success would only continue to grow throughout the foreseeable future. "God of War Ragnarök will debut at No.1 and is the first cross-gen title in the series," Bloch said. "Day 1 physical sales were already greater than any other full-week launch sales for other titles in this franchise."
Despite the game's current success, Santa Monica Studio game director Eric Williams claimed the weeks leading up to God of War Ragnarök's release placed overwhelming pressure on the development team. Williams claimed developers were still panicking over the state of the sequel just three months before its intended release date, with some members even casting doubt on the overall quality of God of War Ragnarök. The director additionally likened his experience in developing the sequel to climbing Mount Everest and claimed he needed to continue building on Ragnarök's success, which was a desire that he believed other developers shared.
Williams also previously explained the development team's creative vision for God of War Ragnarök, with the director claiming they focused on perfecting the God of War formula rather than evolving the series as a whole. "Sequels are not always going to be as major a step," Williams said. "They're going to be refined, and they're going to be a continuation -- especially in the story space. It would have taken us forever to rebuild the whole game and then take on that story. If you liked [the reboot], we'll give you that [again, but] we're going to do a lot more refining."
God of War Ragnarök is available for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
Source: VGC