New Hellblade 2 Sales Data Offers a Clearer Picture of How It Did on Xbox Game Pass and the Charts [IGN]

Hellblade II was billed as one of 2024’s big exclusives when it released back in May, but overall sales numbers have been hard to come by since launch. Now, thanks to Circana’s most recent sales data, we have a clearer idea of its performance.

According to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, Hellblade II was 37th overall in terms of full dollar sales for May 2024, putting it at 21st overall on the Xbox Series consoles. Hellblade II did not receive a physical release.

Getting a lot of questions on this one… Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II ranked 37th overall for May 2024 in US full game dollar sales (physical + digital for sharing pubs), while ranking 21st on Xbox Series.

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) July 8, 2024

Notably, Hellblade II released on Xbox Game Pass at launch, and that was born out in its engagement data, where it ranked 12th on Xbox in terms of monthly active users. That puts it just behind Fallout 76 on the platform, but ahead of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Apex Legends, and Forza Horizon 5.

Piscatella shared the sales info on X/Twitter, since Hellblade II’s performance meant that it didn’t appear on any of the major charts. Xbox and Ninja Theory have shared little about Hellblade II’s sales since its initial release, leaving fans to speculate over Steam concurrents and other data. Gamesindustry.biz publisher Chris Dring noted that it failed to crack the Top 100 on European sales charts in what he described as a “brutal month” for game sales.

The sequel to the acclaimed action-adventure game by Ninja Theory, Hellblade II was announced not long after Xbox acquired the studio in 2018 and finally released earlier this year. It was described as a “defining moment in the evolution of real-time visuals” by Digital Foundry, and we wrote in our own review, “Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II delivers a spellbinding adventure packed with cinematic spectacle and story surprises that maintains a surging sense of forward momentum and never wastes a second of its slender run time.”

Elsewhere, Ghost of Tsushima returned to number one thanks to its Steam release, while Call of Duty dominated the sales charts for both Xbox and PlayStation. Overall, though, it was a rough month for hardware spending as all three consoles recorded double-digit declines.

With Hellblade II now available, Xbox is looking ahead to the rest of 2024, with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Avowed among the first-party releases on its docket. You can see all the rest of the biggest games of 2024 right here.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.