The Last of Us 2 has garnered no shortage of controversy, with a clear divide in the game’s reception. Has that controversy done anything to damage sales, though? Stick with us for The Last of Us 2 sales numbers and whether proposed boycotts and early spoilers have actually had an effect.
The Last of Us 2 Sales Numbers | Have spoilers and controversy hurt sales?
There’s an old adage asserting that all publicity is good publicity, and that seems to apply here. Despite major plot points being leaked well ahead of release and backlash from a subset of noisy fans, The Last of Us 2 has achieved record-breaking success. While exact global sales figures aren’t yet known, TLoU2 is the fastest-selling PS4 exclusive in UK physical sales; it beat the opening week sales of Naughty Dog stablemate Uncharted 4 by just over 1%.
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The Last of Us 2 also performed significantly better than the original. While not surprising for an established sequel versus a new IP, TLoU2 launch sales were 76% higher than its predecessor.
Perhaps most impressively, sales are well ahead of those enjoyed by Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The Nintendo Switch game was a genuine phenomenon when it launched back in March, but The Last of Us 2 has it beat by 40%. Again, that’s purely in terms of physical UK sales, though these kinds of impressive figures suggest that TLoU2 will be enjoying similar success around the globe.
Whether positive or negative, discussions surrounding The Last of Us 2 could inadvertently be helping the game’s marketing efforts. Though the critical reception has been almost uniformly positive, fans haven’t been nearly as kind. At the time of writing, there’s an absolute gulf separating the critic and user review averages on Metacritic. Just shy of 50,000 users have awarded an unfavorable 3.9/10 average score, but clearly the general public hasn’t been dissuaded.
