The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's sales surged last December, up 554 percent

Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Skellige Rain
Witcher 3 Wild Hunt Skellige Rain (Image credit: iMore / Samuel Tolber)

What you need to know

  • The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is experiencing a massive rush of new players since the TV show released.
  • According to NPD, sales were up 554% last December when compared to the previous year.
  • This comes on top of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt setting a record for concurrent players on Steam.

While The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt first released back in May 2015, it's still pushing on in sales. According to a new NPD report, sales of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt were up 554% in December 2019 in the U.S. when compared to December 2018, which is mainly attributed to the incredible success of the TV show which released in December 2019.

Other factors were naturally present, such as the game releasing on Nintendo Switch in October 2019 and multiple game sales on different platforms. Still, the NPD report notes that even when removing copies that were sold on Nintendo Switch, sales were still up 63% year-over-year. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt also set a new record for concurrent players of the game on Steam.

It'll be interesting to see how the franchise continues to grow, with CD Projekt Red stating The Witcher is one of two important franchises for the company moving forward alongside Cyberpunk. CD Projekt Red also reached a new deal with the author of the book series, gaining unspecified additional rights.

The Witcher 3 for Nintendo Switch: The ultimate guide

Samuel Tolbert
Contributor

Samuel Tolbert is a freelance gaming writer who started working for iMore and its sister sites Windows Central and Android Central in July 2019. He handles news, previews, reviews, and exclusive original reporting, and has also been featured on TechRadar.

With a background studying engineering before he shifted his focus to gaming journalism, he's skilled at identifying technical advantages and disadvantages provided by different hardware. If he’s not writing something, he’s off playing video games, spending time with his pets, exercising, or reading. He's also fond of trying to draw things with his iPad.