Mortal Kombat 11 is breaking more than just bones. According to market researcher SuperData, the console versions of the bloody fighting game, along with perennial hit Fortnite, pushed digital game sales to $8.86 billion in April.
That’s a 7% increase from April 2018, when God of War was one of the best-selling games. (While the year-old report originally claimed that digital games earned $9 billion that month, a representative from SuperData said that the company regularly reevaluates their data “based on new information and new methodologies.” The updated forecast for April 2018 is $8.29 billion.)
The new report takes into account digital sales across console, PC, and mobile games. SuperData noted that console games grew the most last month, increasing 17%. League of Legends and Nexon’s Dungeon Fighters Online led the most in spending on PC, but the platform was down 4% overall. Tencent’s Honor of Kings (known as Arena of Valor outside of China), meanwhile, led the mobile category.
During the 2019 GamesBeat Summit in April, publisher Warner Bros. Interactive revealed that Mortal Kombat 11 was the franchise’s most successful launch ever. And that was only 24 hours after the game came out.
SuperData’s results back up this claim, with the company reporting that Mortal Kombat 11 was the best digital launch in the franchise’s history, selling 1.8 million digital copies (a huge increase compared to the 400,000 copies Mortal Kombat X sold in 2015). Industry-tracking firm The NPD Group also confirmed that Mortal Kombat 11 was the best-selling game in April.
From Software’s difficult but beloved action game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, which released in March, also had a strong performance: It was No. 8 on PC and No. 3 on console. The report also revealed that battle royale shooter Apex Legends, which is digital-only, fell out of the top-ranking spots. Respawn’s free-to-play game earned $24 million in April, declining for the second month in a row.
