Far Cry 5 doubles Far Cry 4 launch-week sales

Ubisoft's virtual recreation of Montana might receive more tourists this year than the real thing.* The publisher today announced that Far Cry 5 doubled the first-week sell-through of Far Cry 4, in the process earning the title of fastest selling game in franchise history.

In fact, Far Cry 5 was the second biggest launch ever for Ubisoft with $310 million in consumer spending during its first week, second only to the 2016 debut of Tom Clancy's The Division. Underscoring a larger industry shift, more than half of the Far Cry 5 copies sold were digitally distributed.

Far Cry 5 has been critically well received, with average Metacritic scores ranging from 78 for the PC version to 84 for the Xbox One edition. As Critical Consensus noted, many reviewers were slightly put off by the game's follow-through on its politically charged premise, which sees a heavily armed group of religious of extremists wreak havoc on their rural community.

However, they also applauded the game's absurd sandbox of explosive antics and emergent stories, a strength reflected in the 55,000 hours of Far Cry 5 gameplay that have already been broadcast on Twitch and the 117 million views videos of the game received on YouTube, both of which are records for Ubisoft titles, the company said.

"I'm proud that the culmination of years of passionate work from the team is paying off, and that Far Cry 5's experience resonates with so many people," executive producer Dan Hay said. "We are humbled by players' reception of Far Cry 5 and fired up to keep growing and supporting the Far Cry community in the months and years to come."

*Montana reportedly had 12.2 million non-resident visitors in 2017.