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    Battlefield outsold Call of Duty for the first time ever last year, as Black Ops 7 dropped to 5th place

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    Battlefield outsold Call of Duty for the first time ever last year, as Black Ops 7 dropped to 5th place

    Battlefield 6 outsold Call of Duty for the first time ever last year in the US, according to data from market research firm Circana.

    The Electronic Arts shooter was the best-selling game of 2025 across Circana’s tracked platforms, ranking first on Xbox and aggregated PC storefronts, and second on PlayStation, behind only NBA 2K26.

    The latest Call of Duty entry, Black Ops 7, placed fifth, behind Battlefield, NBA 2K26, Borderlands 4, and Monster Hunter: Wilds.

    It’s worth noting that Black Ops 7 was launched in Xbox Game Pass, while Battlefield was not, and the EA title also released around six weeks earlier.

    Still, it’s a huge turnaround for Battlefield, which has never outsold Call of Duty over a calendar year. Black Ops 7’s fifth place is the lowest a Call of Duty game has placed in nearly 20 years, when Call of Duty: World at War was sixth in 2008, during the Wii phenomenon.

    In the years since then, CoD has regularly been the best-selling game in the US, placing only behind Rockstar titles like GTA and Red Dead Redemption 2 and, most recently, Hogwarts Legacy in 2023.

    The rival shooter franchises had polarising years in 2025. After a rethought development and years of production, Battlefield 6 enjoyed the biggest launch in the history of the series, according to EA, with more than 7 million copies in its first three days.

    In comparison, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7’s launch sales were down more than 60% in some markets compared to the series’ previous instalment. Black Ops 7 launched with increased competition from Battlefield and mixed reviews from critics.

    2024’s Call of Duty, Black Ops 6, was the first to launch day-and-date on Xbox Game Pass. Although early results were positive, with Microsoft declaring it the biggest CoD launch ever in terms of players, the game saw a sharper post-launch decline than usual.

    Speaking to VGC last year, former Call of Duty director, Glen Schofield, said he was ‘immensely worried’ about the future of the franchise under Microsoft, and questioned whether the Xbox maker’s culture will be compatible with the teams behind the FPS over the long term.