Metaphor
It’s a newfound Game of the Year contender, and has rocketed to become a massive hit for Atlus instantly. That would be Metaphor: ReFantazio, the new RPG from Atlus that now has set a record for the studio’s most sales in the shortest amount of time.
That’s one million copies sold on day one, beating out all previous Persona games, the hugely popular and well-loved series from Atlus. Previously, the old record was Persona 3 selling one million in five days. One key difference here, however, is a global release that had lots of regions launching at once, which no doubt contributed to this early total.
One additional factor here was a lengthy demo that Atlus put out for Metaphor that allowed players a taste of the game that hooked many, and caused them to purchase at launch. I’ve seen this credited by many people who picked up the game immediately when otherwise they may have skipped or at the very least, waited for a sale.
Metaphor
As for GOTY contention, Metaphor: ReFantazio has dropped just one single point since launch, its 94 down to a 93, meaning it is no longer tied with Elden Ring’s Shadow of the Erdtree or Astro Bot at 94. Not that it matters, of course. The three-way race between (non-expansion) games is likely to still be Astro Bot, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and now Metaphor. And with a million sales on day one, it’s looking like it’s going to be widely played enough for industry voters to give it a fair shot.
This is a tremendous achievement for Atlus, who has been routinely putting out fantastic Persona games, but now Metaphor has had a record-breaking surge for the studio and rocketed into newfound prominence. Whether it’s GOTY or ultimately just a finalist should not matter, and I would expect this could also set longer-term sales records for Atlus if positive word-of-mouth continues about the game. The game has debuted with “very positive” review scores on Steam and 56,000 concurrent players and climbing in the launch window here, with even more heading into the weekend.
It’s great to see Atlus land a hit like this in what is turning out to be a crowded year of high-quality releases. Persona games almost always standout themselves, but it’s cool to see them do so with Metaphor: ReFantazio here as well.
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