More People Bought Big Brain Academy Than Vanguard This Year In Europe
It's no secret that Call of Duty: Vanguard fell short of its expectations. By quite a margin. But nobody expected it to fall behind the market this badly.
Despite gathering quite a lot of hype around the game that was designed to bring post-WWII to life, Vanguard's rushed development was nothing short of disastrous for the game, and upon release, the unfinished product resulted in players fleeing the game entirely.
Sledgehammer Games gave it their best efforts to regain, through promotions such as entire free-to-play weeks, but the damage was already done, and now even the most menial of games have overtaken them in numbers of units sold this year.
Vanguard Sales Slip Behind Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain
Since the turn of the year, sales for Vanguard have plummeted. In fact, across Europe, Vanguard is only the 18th best-selling game, which by Call of Duty standards, is abysmal.
Even Nintendo's Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain has overtaken the sales of Vanguard, according to a study from GamesIndustry.biz.
Click to enlargeThe brain-training puzzle game, which originated back in 2005 with the Nintendo DS, was released on Nintendo Switch in December 2021, and since then, it has sold more copies than Vanguard and Far Cry 6.
Vanguard Sales Plummet To 18th Best-Seller In Europe
The GamesIndustry.biz study showed that Elden Ring, FIFA 22, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus were the top-selling games of the first half of 2022 respectively. Other titles sat surprisingly high on the list such as Gran Turismo 7 (7th), Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition (15th), and Kirby and the Forgotten Land (12th), the latter of which has only been out for four months.
All of the above beat Vanguard, which proves troublesome for the Call of Duty franchise ahead of Warzone 2 and Modern Warfare 2's release later this year.
The only saving grace for Vanguard is that with annual releases games typically fly off the shelves within the first three months - in Call of Duty's case specifically considering their early November release before Christmas.
Call of Duty developers might be more hopeful for Modern Warfare 2 given the franchise's kickstart, but it might need a little more TLC if it wants to overtake menial task titles such as Big Brain Academy: Brain vs Brain.