Has ‘Fallout 4’ Finally Unseated ‘GTA V’ From Its Throne?
It’s just been severals days since Fallout 4 released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC worldwide, but it seems it’s already running ahead of Grand Theft Auto (GTA V), one of the biggest — if not the biggest — hits in the open-world genre of gaming.
Last June, when Fallout 4 first broke the internet with its out-of-the-blue reveal, the Inquisitr reported that Bethesda’s game director, Todd Howard, actually admitted it was Grand Theft Auto that inspired Fallout 4 and what it will (at that time) become.
“Well, in our games, we want to give you complete freedom. So, I think of the last few years, I think GTA V had succeeded the most at the same type of thing we try to do. I look at that game and think, ‘Wow, I just don’t know how they did this.’ That’s what we try to create, that sense of going anywhere and doing anything. GTA V does it so well. It puts you in its world and it makes you its director. It says yes to the player a lot, and that’s what we try to do. It’s just a phenomenal game.”
This goes to show how Fallout 4 actually looked up to GTA V, which now becomes a subject of awe as we talk about success and sales statistics. Fallout 4 did not only follow in GTA V’s footsteps — Fallout 4 was actually able to overtake GTA V in sales.
Tech Times reported that a mere 24 hours after Fallout 4 released worldwide, the game was already able to attract, at one point, 444,825 players at the same time. And that was still back on November 11. As of this writing, Fallout 4 has already amassed a high of 471,955 gamers playing at a single time, based on Steam Charts statistics. This is more than 100,000 over GTA V’s previous record of 360,761 concurrent players in April. This was more or less three days after GTA V released on PC, which was on April 14.
As of now, Fallout 4 is already in third place in Steam Charts’ Top Records, right behind Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. GTA V, which was sitting in third before Fallout 4, is now in fourth place in terms of record peak players. In the overall Top Games category, Fallout 4 is still at third with 91,251,128 hours played in just a matter of days, with GTA V sliding down to sixth with only 26,740,761 hours played after over seven months on the market.
In terms of sales, Fallout 4 and GTA V are neck in neck. When Fallout 4 released on November 10, the International Business Times writes that Bethesda Softworks announced Fallout 4 was able to bring home 12 million launch-day and preorder copies of the game. Bethesda received a total of $750 million only 24 hours into the launch, shipping copies of Fallout 4 to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
In comparison, in fairness to GTA V, the game was able to earn over $800 million in its first day sales with 11.2 million copies shipped — and that was still back in 2013 when GTA V released only in Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. One year after GTA V’s release for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, it came out for Xbox One and Playstation 4. Two years later, on PC. As of August 2015, four months into the huge PC release of GTA V, the game is already at 54 million sold copies across platforms, IGNreports. Given the same time frame for Fallout 4, there’s a chance it could actually dethrone more of GTA V’s record-breaking feats.
President Vlatko Andonov of Bethesda Softworks expressed in a media statement how proud he is of the Fallout 4 team for achieving such lengths.
“We’re extremely proud of Todd Howard, game director at Bethesda Game Studios, and his experienced team of developers for their talent and dedication in creating this extraordinary game. Fallout 4 is a masterpiece in game development and storytelling, providing fans hundreds of hours of fun as they explore and are challenged by this fascinating, beautifully crafted world.”
Two years after GTA V released, it’s still raking in hundreds of thousands of hours of playing time every day, which shows how much patronage the title receives from its players. Looking into the horizon of Fallout 4, if the game successfully develops its online sphere, there is a chance it can replicate what GTA V was able to achieve. A good storyline and good mechanics alone won’t keep fans coming back to the title. Fallout 4 has to be every bit of innovative, daring, and boisterous as GTA V to be able to continue its streak for months to come.
