Adam Starkey
Published November 21, 2025 2:26pm
Updated November 21, 2025 2:36pm
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A shooter reborn (EA)
EA has beaten Monster Hunter Wilds and NBA 2K26 with sales of Battlefield 6, as Pokémon Legends: Z-A comes out on top for physical sales.
We already know Battlefield 6 has been a big hit within the context of the series, having sold over seven million copies worldwide within three days, but it has now soared past even the loftiest of expectations.
According to Circana’s Mat Piscatella, EA’s shooter not only topped the US charts for October (from October 5 to November 1), but after just one month, it is now the highest-selling game of the year so far.
This means it has overtaken NBA 2K26 and Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds, which topped 10 million sales within one month worldwide, earlier this year. It is also ahead of Borderlands 4, EA Sports College Football 26, and The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered.
While the real test for Battlefield 6 will be how it fares against the sales of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 this month, there’s already signs that it could actually beat it.
According to Piscatella, Battlefield 6 produced the ‘highest single month US physical and digital full game tracked dollar sales in three years’. (US charts count revenue, not the number of copies sold.)
The last game to generate larger sales within one month was Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in October 2022 so, in other words, it has surpassed the launch sales of recent Call Of Duty titles like Black Ops 6.
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It remains to be seen whether Battlefield 6 can maintain this pace, but this means EA is well on its way to being a significant rival to Call Of Duty – far more so than the series ever has been in the past.
Even a month after launch, Battlefield 6 has a steady 24-hour player peak of 215,985 on Steam (via SteamDB), so it’s retaining a sizeable player base too.
2025 Year-to-Date Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content)
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2025-11-20T14:01:56.735Z
The biggest question is whether this is a one-off success or something EA will be able to further build on in the years to come.
For example, it’s unclear how well the free battle royale mode, RedSec, is performing, but Twitch viewership suggests it is lagging behind Warzone, with 2.1K viewers versus Warzone’s 6.1K viewers at time of writing – which isn’t a great sign for a new title. (Redsec isn’t tracked separately by Steam so there are no player numbers.)
Regardless of RedSec’s success though, Battlefield 6 is an undisputed triumph. According to Circana, it is already the best-selling game in the series after one month in the US, having already passed the previous record holder, Battlefield 1.
October 2025 Top 20 Best-Selling Premium Games – U.S. (Dollar Sales, Physical and Digital from digital data sharing publishers, excludes add-on content)
— Mat Piscatella (@matpiscatella.bsky.social) 2025-11-20T14:01:56.734Z
Elsewhere in the US chart, Pokémon Legends: Z-A had a big month too. The sequel, not counting digital sales, ranked second as the best-selling game of October. More notably, it is the best-selling physical game of the year so far, so it also seems to have done better than initially reported.
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Ghost of Yōtei, meanwhile, climbed up one place to be the third best-selling game of October. Impressively, it is now the tenth best-selling game of 2025 so far, beating the likes of Elden Ring Nightreign and EA Sports FC 26, despite only being available on PlayStation 5.
On the hardware front, video game spending grew 36% in October when compared to a year ago. This was mostly thanks to the Switch 2, which sold 328,000 units within this period.
According to Piscatella, the console is 68% ahead of the sales pace of the original Switch and 3% ahead of the PlayStation 4’s ‘previous record velocity’.
Another pocket monster hit (The Pokémon Company)
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