Assassin’s Creed Valhalla takes Christmas number 1 as Cyberpunk 2077 falls to third place Graphics in UK boxes

It was a close race for Christmas No. 1 this year, with Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla emerging as the No. 1 physical game of the period.

It’s the first time Assassin’s Creed has reached No. 1 Christmas (and, in fact, the first time for Ubisoft), and only the third time a non-FIFA or Call of Duty game has topped the charts. box in 15 years (source: GfK Entertainment).

The game rose in sales by 66% due to a price discount before Christmas. The game surpassed Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, which took second place after selling as many copies last week as last week. This is the first time that the Black Ops sub-series has failed to claim Christmas number 1.

Last week’s big number 1 was Cyberpunk 2077 and the RPG fell 80% in sales this week and dropped to number 3. The game has received extremely negative press in recent days due to its low technical performance in PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Still, it’s worth noting that an 80% drop in sales isn’t extremely unusual for a game like this. In fact, other games that got big pre-orders, such as The Last of Us: Part Two in the summer, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla in November, both fell 80% and 70% respectively in their second week.

The negative press is likely to have had some impact on game sales this week, but most of the decline is to be expected.

The new CD Projekt game prevents FIFA 21, which has to settle for fourth place despite a 40% increase in sales. Meanwhile, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is at number 5 with an 11% drop in sales, the first drop in sales to be experienced in more than a month. Only 9,000 units separate Animal Crossing at number 5 and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla at number 1.

This whole chart is based solely on physical retail sales.

Elsewhere, there were several last-minute rises in sales on all charts, in part due to the price discount. Spider-Man: Miles Morales rises to number 6 after a 45% increase in sales, Ring Fit Adventure returns to the Top Ten at number 9 after a jump of 155% and Super Mario 3D All-Stars ranks tenth place with 44% increase sales. Out of the top ten, Immortals: Fenyx Rising jumps to number 12 thanks to a 107% increase in sales, Watch Dogs Legion is at number 14 due to a 98% increase in sales and Carnival Games returns to number 35 with a 499% increase in sales. There were also deals on PS4 games, which meant that The Last of Us: Part Two returned to number 30 with a 374 |% increase in sales and Ghost of Tsushima reached number 34 after sales increased by 208. %.

Here’s GfK’s Christmas Top Ten for the week ending December 19:

And for fun, here are all the other Christmas numbers in history. FIFA (eight) and Call of Duty (eight) are the franchises with the highest number of Christmas numbers.