Capcomhas been a big developer and publisher in the gaming world for several decades now, but especially more so lately, as its had a great run of several high-quality games from its biggest franchises. The gaming giant has also shown a lot of interest recently in reviving some of its older, less popular franchises such as Okami, Onimusha, and Dino Crisis.
Capcom has also been very transparent, openly sharing the sales data of its games on its website, big or small. Given the popularity ofsome of these gaming franchises, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see that all ten of its top-selling games currently belong to either the Monster Hunter or the Resident Evil series.
Despite releasing only a few years ago in 2022, the expansion to the main Monster Hunter Rise game has already reached almost ten million units. This version improved gameplay with new combat mechanics and added a bunch of new stuff like unique monsters, more hunting areas, and a new Master Rank difficulty.
The expansion was worthwhile enough to make players buy this version, even if they already owned the base game. It’s pretty impressive that this expansion sold almost ten million units so quickly, especially when it wasn’t available on current-gen consoles at launch and was limited to PC and Switch.
Resident Evil 6 was an extremely divisive game for the series as some fans felt it leaned a bit too heavily into the action-adventure side of things, with little horror and tension remaining. The game was divided into four mini-campaigns that could be played in any order, but this only made things worse as it led to a very incoherent experience.
Despite this, its inclusion here is still no surprise. It features most of the fan-favorite characters of the franchise, including Leon, Chris, and Ada, along with a few fresh new faces. This was enough to make fans buy the game so that they could see these characters and their stories continuing from the previous games.
Resident Evil 5 finally continued the story of Resident Evil 1’s Chris after a long gap, with him returning as a protagonist and wrapping up his storyline with Wesker. The story follows Chris and his new partner Sheva as they track down bio-terror threats in Africa. Its co-op gameplay was also a big focus.
While the game wasn’t as good as Resident Evil 4, and some fans missed the survival horror feel and felt the storytelling here was weaker, the game’s shift toward action didn’t hurt its sales at all, evidently.
Resident Evil 3 is a bit of surprise here. Though the game was good, it was a noticeable step down in quality from the previous year’sacclaimed Resident Evil 2 Remake. It focused on Resident Evil 1’s Jill Valentine as she tries to escape Raccoon City while being hunted by the terrifying Nemesis.
This one, unfortunately, had a lot of content cut from it that affected its pacing and prevented the story and characters from being as fleshed out as they could’ve been. Still, it was a game worth playing at least once.
Resident Evil Village, or Resident Evil 8, was a solid follow-up to Resident Evil 7, although it took more inspiration from Resident Evil 4 for its vibe instead of the more grounded and focused feel of its predecessor.
It continued and concluded Ethan Winters’ story from Resident Evil 7. This time, Ethan finds himself in a creepy European village trying to rescue his kidnapped daughter. The game did a good job of balancing both the horror and the action halves of the franchise.
Resident Evil 7 revived the franchise after Resident Evil 6’s mixed reception. The switch to first-person was a bold move, and the execution of the game was so good that it worked extremely well and brought the game back to its horror roots.
It was a far more personal story compared to the previous installments in the franchise, following Ethan Winters as he searched for his wife in a creepy mansion that was home to the Baker family.
4Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
14.90 Million Units
Another expansion for a Monster Hunter game tops Capcom’s highest-selling chart: Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. It was released about a year and a half the launch of the base game.
It added a new story, a new icy region, new monsters, gameplay mechanics, the Master Rank, and a lot more. This was an absolutely massive expansion, being almost as long as the base game itself, and pretty much a steal for its $40 price point at launch.
Theremake of Resident Evil 2is no surprise here, as the game was beloved by both critics and die-hard fans, while also bringing in a new generation of players that had not played much of this series before.
This game also more or less served as the inspiration for more remakes like 2023’s amazing Dead Space Remake, not to mention more remakes in the series itself, such as Resident Evil 3 and Resident Evil 4, with more likely be follow suit.
Monster Hunter Rise shows just how massive and dedicated the player base of the Nintendo Switch really is, as this game launched in 2021 exclusively for Nintendo players, before coming to PC in 2022 and current-gen consoles in 2023. Still, most of its sales have been on the Switch, which is a staggering number.
You’d think that limiting this game to the Nintendo Switch at launch would hurt its sales, but that wasn’t the case at all, thanks to the sheer popularity of both the console and the Monster Hunter fanbase.
Capcom’s highest-selling game to date is no surprise, as Monster Hunter: World is widely considered to bethe best game in the franchise, and an extremely popular one too.
It was a big step up from the previous entries in the franchise, with larger maps, seamless exploration, more dynamic monster behavior, and numerous other gameplay improvements. Its success really turned Monster Hunter into a global franchise, going far beyond Japan this time.
