Unlike the exceedingly slow preceding month of January, February 2026 had a steadily moving line of new releases to shake up the U.S. sales charts, with Resident Evil Requiem debuting as the best-selling game of the month and, thus far, the entire year.
We don’t have a specific sales figure for Requiem in the U.S., but Capcom has said it has sold 6 million globally, making it the fastest-selling game in the franchise ever.
Unfortunately for money and numbers people, all the new releases didn’t really do anything to boost overall sales compared to last year. According to Circana’s monthly report compiled and analyzed by Mat Piscatella, total gaming spending was only up 1% year-over-year, content spending was flat, and accessories were down 2% from last year.
Hardware was the only area that saw real change, and that’s largely thanks to the Nintendo Switch 2, which wasn’t out at this time last year. With the Switch 2 in the mix, hardware was up 22% to $326 million, with Switch 2 spending offsetting declines in all the other consoles. The PS5 still led both dollar and unit sales.
But the Switch 2 is still outpacing its predecessor nine months in, trending 45% ahead of the original Switch in the U.S. Notably, November was the Switch 1’s ninth month in action, so both consoles now have a Black Friday under their belts when comparing their respective time on the market.
Content spending saw declines across everything except non-mobile subscription spending, which was up 27% compared to last year. I initially found that surprising given all the new releases. There’s Requiem debuting at No.1 for the month and the year, Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined at No.9 for February and 14th for the year so far, Mario Tennis Fever at No.11 for February (No.1 on Switch 2), God of War: Sons of Sparta at No.14 (No.6 on PlayStation), My Hero Academia: All’s Justice at No.17, and the Resident Evil Generation Pack coming in at No.20. Interestingly, Resident Evil Generation Pack containing Resident Evil 7, Village, and the new Requiem sold better on Switch than just Requiem by itself (No.4 on the platform vs. No. 6), showing a pretty big appetite for Resident Evil from Nintendo fans.
But then I took a look at February 2025 and wow, the comparable on this must be tough. February of last year saw the debuts of Monster Hunter Wilds (No.1. for the month), Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (No.2), Civ VII (No.3), PGA Tour 2K25 (No.4), and Avowed (No.7). By comparison, this is an exceedingly quiet February.
There were some interesting software sales spikes, though. Diablo II: Remastered leaped from No.195 last month to No.13 in February thanks to the Steam release of the Infernal Edition. And Doom: The Dark Ages went from No.92 on the PC storefront charts for January to No.9 thanks to some anniversary sale promo pricing.
February 2026 U.S. Top 20 Best-Selling Games:
- Resident Evil Requiem (NEW)
- NBA 2K26
- Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
- Minecraft*
- Helldivers 2
- EA Sports FC 26
- Battlefield 6
- Madden NFL 26
- Dragon Quest VII: Reimagined (NEW)
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Mario Tennis Fever* (NEW)
- Red Dead Redemption II
- Diablo II: Resurrected
- God of War: Sons of Sparta (NEW)
- Ghost of Yotei
- Forza Horizon 5
- My Hero Academia: All’s Justice (NEW)
- Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
- Pokemon Legends: Z-A*
- Resident Evil Generation Pack (NEW)
* Indicates that some or all digital sales are not included in Circana’s data. Some publishers, including Nintendo, do not share certain digital data for this report.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
