You’d think that a Horizon: Zero Dawn sequel or Spider-Man: Miles Moralis might be the most popular PS5 games. But as it turns out, Australia’s favourite PS5 game is a bit creepier.
Sony’s PlayStation 5 reveal was chockers full of interesting games, from upcoming AAA sequels to cute indies like The Cat Game. The biggest titles announced included Horizon: Forbidden West, Godfall, Spider-Man: Miles Moralis, a new Gran Turismo, Bethesda’s Deathloop, the Demon’s Souls remake and GhostWire: Tokyo.
Ordinarily, you’d think that Spider-Man or Horizon: Forbidden West would be the most popular titles based on how well their predecessors sold. And internationally, according to Google Trends data collated by iPrice, Horizon: Forbidden West was the most sought after exclusive in the week following the PS5 launch.
From all the third-party games, it’s no surprise that Resident Evil: Village was by far and away the biggest highlight. Comparing just the third-party titles alone, Resident Evil: Village had more than half of the search volume of all the PS5 games.
But what’s most interesting is the Australian-only data. After breaking down all the games together, Australians searched more for Resident Evil Village — or Resident Evil 8, which everyone assumed was the game’s name — than any other title from the PS5 showcase.
Horizon: Forbidden West and Miles Moralis were still popular, but less so. The biggest surprise was the Demon’s Souls remake, which was behind Godfall and Gran Turismo 7 in terms of Australian search interest:
- Resident Evil 8 / Resident Evil Village: 18%
- Horizon: Forbidden West: 16%
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales: 12%
- Godfall: 8%
- Gran Turismo 7: 7%
- Demon’s Souls: 4%
- Deathloop: 4%
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart: 4%
- Project Athia: 4%
- Hitman 3: 3%
- Solar Ash: 3%
- Little Devil Inside: 3%
- Pragmata: 2%
- Kena – Bridge of Spirits: 2%
- BugSnax: 2%
- GhostWire: Tokyo: 2%
- Returnal: 2%
- Goodbye Volacno High: 2%
Other interesting differences between Australia’s interest in PS5 games compared to other countries: Aussies were more keen on the new Ratchet & Clank comparatively, while there was less interest locally in Demon’s Souls compared to the worldwide search volumes. Australians were also less interested in searching for Project Athia or Pragmata.
That doesn’t mean Demon’s Souls won’t sell like hotcakes here, of course, especially when you look at how well Bloodborne did. All it means is that Resident Evil‘s trailer was the most interesting for Aussies, and the positioning of the trailer (towards the end of the stream) could have also helped.
And that makes a lot of sense when you think of how popular the Resident Evil 2 remake was. The game was a huge success for Capcom worldwide; it was also the Kotaku Australia Readers’ Favourite Game of 2019, and by a significant distance. (That could have partially been down to 2019 being a bit of a softer year than normal, but also, no other game had a mod as funny as Mr. X being replaced by Thomas the Tank Engine.)
It’s worth noting that the data collated was on the day of the PS5 showcase, and it didn’t include third-party titles that were announced well before the showcase (which either weren’t shown during the Sony event, or would have unfairly benefited by a longer tail of search traffic from being announced beforehand). Some games, like Stray, also weren’t included because the nature of their title makes it difficult to extrapolate interest from non-gaming related search queries.
We’ll run the figures again later this month after the Xbox first-party showcase, both seeing what first-party Xbox Series X titles Aussies are most keen on and how those titles compare to the PS5 exclusives.
What PS5 games do you think will sell the best in Australia?
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