Halo Wars 2 Struggles out of the Gate
Halo Wars 2 launched exclusively on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC on Feb. 21. Developed in partnership with 343 Industries and legendary RTS maker Creative Assembly, Halo Wars 2 is certainly considered a niche game by many; however, we expected big things. With two heavy hitting developers at the helm and strong review scores, impressive sales numbers should have been a given. Today, we learned retail sales haven’t been as good as expected.
The real-time strategy game from Microsoft and Creative Assembly sold 149,463 units first week at retail on the Xbox One, according to VGChartz estimates. First week sales can be viewed on the VGChartz Global Weekly Chart for the week ending February 25.
Breaking down the sales by region, the game sold best in the US with 89,524 units sold (60%), compared to 38,102 units sold in Europe (25%). Looking more closely at Europe, the game sold an estimated 17,352 units in the UK, 4,962 units in Germany, and 3,963 units in France.
Keep in mind these are retail sales numbers so download sales could likely be significantly higher. Nevertheless, those retail numbers aren’t exactly jaw dropping.
Back in February we published our full Halo Wars 2 written review where our man Ahmed said: “Halo Wars 2 delivers a superb story that ends with a million possibilities on what could happen in future games. It’s contained and focused nature allows new players to jump in and experience some good old Covenant versus human battles that defined the original Halo trilogy. Its return to the classic art style is an encouraging move to set the franchises look apart from other sci-fi games and the evolution of its gameplay and multiplayer modes is sure to keep many strategizing far into the future. The game’s pacing might be the best I’ve witnessed this generation besides a set of missions early on that doesn’t move fast enough. Halo Wars 2 delivers on nearly all aspects and could spell a very bright future for the RTS spinoff in the years to come.”
Halo Wars 2 released for the Xbox One and Windows PC worldwide on February 21.