If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Crackdown 3 was the most played premium title on Xbox One last week

Sandbox sequel only missed out to Apex Legends and Fortnite, driven primarily by single-player campaign

While its physical launch sales were somewhat disappointing -- certainly if the UK figures are anything to go by -- there is data to suggest Crackdown has still been a hit on Xbox One.

True Achievements has released its latest weekly chart of the platform's most played games, which shows Crackdown 3 was the third most popular title of the week. It was only surpassed by Apex Legends and Fortnite, in terms of the number of Xbox users that played it, and both of those are free-to-play titles.

Interestingly, it's the single-player campaign specifically that reached No.3 in the charts. The multiplayer and the technically ambitious Wrecking Zone mode placed much lower at No.22.

True Achievements' chart is calculated by scanning Xbox user accounts -- a sample of more than half a million from around the world -- for which games they have played in the previous week, running from Monday to Sunday. It's worth emphasising that these are games actively played, not just ones where achievements have been unlocked.

One in ten of these users played Crackdown 3 last week, more than double the number that played Red Dead Redemption 2 in the same period. To further demonstrate the popularity of the single-player campaign, less than a third of the Xbox owners that played Crackdown 3 were indulged in Wrecking Zone.

The reason for the disparity between Crackdown's active userbase and its retail woes is almost certainly the title's inclusion in Xbox Game Pass, making it readily available to anyone who has already subscribed -- or even those who sign up for a trial around launch.

Microsoft has yet to release any official numbers on how many subscribers the service has, or how well Crackdown 3 fared globally at launch.

Other new entries, meanwhile, were considerably less popular in the True Achievements charts. Metro Exodus was only the 32nd most played game of the week, while Far Cry: New Dawn was 37th. Both were beaten by the beta for Black Desert Online, and Bandai Namco's Jump Force didn't even place.

Of course, Metro and Far Cry both fared better on other platforms. In the UK, for example, PlayStation 4 accounted for 57% of Metro Exodus' launch sales, and 60% of Far Cry: New Dawn's.

Related topics
Author
James Batchelor avatar

James Batchelor

Editor-in-chief

James Batchelor is Editor-in-Chief at GamesIndustry.biz. He has been a B2B journalist since 2006, and an author since he knew what one was