One of the biggest year-end questions people have about the gaming industry this year is whether or not Battlefield 6 will outsell Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, a feat that would end a 20-year run of Call of Duty’s dominance. It remains to be seen if that will happen, and while we wait for the data to come in, Circana’s Mat Piscatella has shared some data points about the shooter category in the US.
To begin with, Piscatella pointed out that the last shooter game to outsell a Call of Duty title in the US over a full year was Gears of War in 2006. The last FPS to beat Call of Duty was Star Wars: Battlefront II in 2005.
Call of Duty has reigned supreme in the US not just in the shooter and FPS categories, but generally as well. A Call of Duty game has finished the year as the best-selling title for 13 of the past 16 years, the exceptions being 2013 (GTA 5), 2018 (Red Dead Redemption II), and 2023 (Hogwarts Legacy).
