The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt—CD Projekt Red’s massively successful and critically acclaimed open-world RPG—has now sold over 50 million copies, making it one of the best-selling games of all time. It’s sold enough copies to be rubbing elbows with massive games like Grand Theft Auto V, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Tetris.
First released in 2015 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, The Witcher 3 was developed and published by CD Projekt Red and was the third entry in the open-world RPG series. Like the previous two, it starred the monster hunter and stoic charmer Geralt and was based on a series of fantasy novels about the character. What helped The Witcher 3 stand apart from other games in 2015 and what helps it continue to shine today—is the quality of its huge open world. Nearly every square inch of the map is thoughtfully designed and filled with interesting, well-written characters and side-quests. And now, in 2023, it’s quite clear this game is something special as it’s sold approximately a bazillion copies since release. That’s a lot!
More specifically, on May 29, CD Projekt Red announced that The Witcher 3 has sold over 50 million copies since its 2015 launch. That’s an impressive number by itself, without any context. But it becomes even more impressive when you start to compare it to other games and franchises.
Some of the games The Witcher 3 has outsold since 2015
The Witcher 3 is now, based on publicly available data, the ninth best-selling video game in history, just slipping by Pokémon Red / Blue / Yellow, the first-ever Pokemon game’s, equally impressive 47.5 million units. Also below The Witcher 3 are huge hit games like Skyrim, Diablo III, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, GTA: San Andreas, and Borderlands 2. And it’s creepin’ up on Red Dead Redemption II, which sits at number eight on the current list. Rockstar’s open-world cowboy game currently stands at around 53,000,000 sold.
In fact, The Witcher 3 has sold enough copies that, like GTA V, it’s starting to outsell entire franchises. For example, The Witcher 3—a single video game—-has sold more copies than Sony’s entire The Last of Us franchise. It’s also outsold the entireties of Saint’s Row, Watch Dogs, Horizon, Splinter Cell, Dying Light, and Dark Souls.
With that much success, it’s not surprising that CD Projekt Red has more Witcher games in the works, including a new trilogy made in-house, a handful of spin-offs from other developers, and an Unreal Engine-powered remake of the original Witcher game. By the time all of these games are finally out, it’s likely The Witcher 3 will have sold yet more copies and moved even further up the rankings. And it did all this without Henry Cavill.