Elden Ring got more YouTube views at launch than GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 combined

gamesradar.com:

Elden Ring videos collectively got 3.4 billion views on YouTube in the 60 days following the game's launch, beating the combined viewership for GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption 2 videos for the same post-launch window.

A recent infographic (opens in new tab) from the YouTube Gaming Twitter account put Elden Ring's launch into perspective. GTA 5 saw 1.9 billion views in the 60 days after its launch, while Red Dead Redemption 2 got 1.4 billion, Super Mario Odyssey got 828 million, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild saw 638 million, and Skyrim got 456 million back in its heyday. 

Gather ‘round Tarnished! Let’s look at the breakdown of how Elden Ring garnered 3.4 billion video views in 60 days, making it one of the biggest launches ever on YouTube ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/252qjZsmOvAugust 2, 2022

This smattering of open-world hits is an interesting dissection of platforms as well as player and viewer behavior. Elden Ring dominated discussion throughout the entire games industry for several months, so its turnout isn't a massive surprise. It was also notably released on multiple platforms, giving it an edge over the Switch-exclusive Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. 

Meanwhile, GTA 5 and Skyrim, which were also multiplatform, came out roughly eight and 11 years ago, respectively. This was back when YouTube was a much smaller platform running on a very different algorithm, to say nothing of the size of the games industry at the time. There were surely plenty of other factors at play, but Elden Ring was definitely uniquely primed to take over YouTube. It has a lot of discoveries to share, hidden items to look up, and bosses to make guides for. 

YouTube Gaming also highlighted some standout creators, including FromSoftware