Battlefield 5 stumbles in its first week on sale in the UK

News by Sherif Saed Contributing Editor

Published on Nov. 27, 2018

Battlefield 5's opening week sales at UK retail have not been great.

Battlefield 5, which officially launched on November 20, only managed to land in the fourth spot in the weekly UK retail chart, according to Chart-Track (via GamesIndustry).

Compared to Battlefield 1, the series' best-selling game to date, launch week sales were down by a massive 63% for Battlefield 5. The drop could be explained partially by the greater emphasis on digital in 2018 compared to 2016.

Battlefield 5 in particular was marketed as a digital, live service game, with three release dates depending on how much you're willing to pay, and your platform of choice in some cases. The game, in essence, has been available long before the November 20 launch - as early as November 9, in fact.

That's not to say Battlefield 5 launch sales may not be down overall compared to Battlefield 1, but we can't be sure of this without official numbers. The November NPD report may shed better light on this seeing as it takes into account digital sales from certain publishers, unlike the UK's Chart-Track.

It's also worth noting that this was Black Friday week in the UK and everywhere else, so Battlefield 5 may have had a tougher time than usual making a case for itself at full price when many other AAA games were selling for up to 50% off.

Black Friday deals did impact the top ten elsewhere, of course, most notably with Spider-Man, and Forza Horizon 4, which both benefited from discounts and charted higher on the list. See the top ten below.