Elden Ring Ranks #20 In Most Played Games In Q1 2022 In United States

We are only 5 months into 2022 but we have already got some amazing games this year. Horizon Forbidden West, Dying Light 2, and Pokémon Legends: Arceus are just some of the big-name launches we have seen this year. Many indie games have also had a great impact but there is one game that stands out from the rest.

Elden Ring has no doubt been the biggest release this year and every metric back that fact up. It has broken sales records everywhere and got the highest Metacritic rating of all time. You would assume that with such a huge launch the game would be among the most played. However, that isn’t the case according to a new NPD report.

Elden Ring surprisingly ranks 20th in the list containing the most played game of Q1 2022 in the United States. A Tweet from Mat Piscatella of the NPD group gives us this shocking new info. NPD Group’s PlayerPulse is the source of this list and Elden Ring doesn’t make the top 10 in an unexpected twist. The game had a momentous release and seeing it not make the cut is astonishing for every player of the game.

Here are the top 10 most played games of Q1 2022 in the U.S. ranked by year of initial release. (Source: The NPD Group's PlayerPulse)

Half of the top 10 weren't launched this decade. Elden Ring ranked 20th. Ahead of it were games like Rocket League, World of Warcraft and Skyrim. pic.twitter.com/eWXKVMFHZj

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) May 24, 2022

Some arguments can obviously be given in favor of Elden Ring. It was only released at the end of February so this list amounts to only 1 month of playtime. While on the other hand, all of the top 10 came out in the last year or way before that. So, players were able to play them for 3 months and that can distort this rating a bit. But even with this time limit, it’s still very amazing to not see Elden Ring make the top 10.

As we have already told you, it had huge sales numbers in its first few days. Everyone was playing it and the hype for the game was through the roof. Hence, there is no reason why it shouldn’t at least make the top 10 with such a huge player base.

Maybe the only reason it stopped racking up play hours is that the players stopped playing. Elden Ring is challenging as any Soulsborne and everyone knows that. So maybe Malenia scared away players from completing another playthrough.

Half of the games that do make the top 10 are not from this decade. Minecraft takes the top spot with two older games in GTA V and The Sims 4 following it. Fortnite also makes the cut and it’s all credit to the developers for keeping these titles alive even in 2022.

Some recent games which do make the cut are Call of Duty: Warzone, NBA 2K22, and Animal Crossing. Every player would have expected to see Elden Ring here but for whatever reason, that isn’t the case.