Far Cry 5's Digital Launch Sales Were Up 500% Compared to Far Cry Primal

You didn't hear this from me, but, Far Cry 5 is better than Far Cry Primal, aka the Far Cry game before it. And if the criteria is sales numbers, I'm far from the only one digging Far Cry 5.

A few weeks ago, Far Cry 5 made the headlines as the fastest-selling entry in the Ubisoft-developed series. And compared to the previous entry in the series, Far Cry Primal, it has performed commercially much, much better, at least digitally.

According to games and media interactive intelligence group, SuperData, Far Cry 5's launch digital sales numbers were up 500% compared to Far Cry Primal, which launched two years earlier in 2016.

At the surface level, this suggests either that Far Cry 5 has been been a colossal success (it did reportedly sell five million copies just in its first week), or that Primal was underwhelming in regards to sales. In fact, there might be truth in both of these. However, given that Far Cry 5 is the fastest-selling entry in series history, it would appear it is the exception and not Primal.

That said, it's important to note that while a 500% increase is a very large increase, it is partially inflated by the rise of the digital marketplace from 2016. The digital games market was already established and growing in 2016, but two years of continued growth later, it's even bigger now. So naturally, part of this 500% is a result of that.

But surely the growth of the digital marketplace doesn't account for the entirety of the 500% increase, or even most of it.

It's also worth noting that Far Cry 5 is a mainline entry in the series, with a "5" it can tout in marketing. Meanwhile Primal was numberless, not mainline, and thus harder to market. All of this factors in when accounting for the drastic difference between the two games at launch, digitally.

Far Cry 5 is available for PS4, Xbox One, and PC as of last month. Looking ahead, the game's Season Pass content – which includes three unique expansions – has yet to start rolling out, and consequently should start to do soon. You can read more about said content here.

In other recent and related news, Far Cry 5 has also been posting big numbers in the retail space, and was notably the best-selling game at retail in the United States for the month of March, despite releasing pretty late into the month.