It was a frantic ending to August, as a clutch of highly anticipated and critically acclaimed games released last year. Control, Man of Medan, Wreckfest and Astral Chain all arrived together, but it was PlatinumGames’ latest that took the honours in a closely fought battle to top the UK retail charts.
In the end, Astral Chain was just 1,100 units ahead of demolition derby Wreckfest, itself a mere 250 copies ahead of Man of Medan, and Control in fourth just 300 copies behind that. Of course, this is just at retail, and with Nintendo not sharing digital sales at all and the digital charts still rare to see, we don’t know how different the picture is once those purchases are taken into account.
Astral Chain might be PlatinumGames’ first UK number 1, but it’s the sixth Nintendo exclusive to top the charts in 2019 (including previously released games), and so it’s quite plausible that it would still be ahead of the trio of multiplatform releases.
Here’s the top 22:
| LW | TW | Title |
| NE | 1 | ASTRAL CHAIN |
| NE | 2 | WRECKFEST |
| NE | 3 | THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: MAN OF MEDAN |
| NE | 4 | CONTROL |
| 1 | 5 | MARIO KART 8 DELUXE |
| 3 | 6 | CRASH TEAM RACING NITRO-FUELED |
| 2 | 7 | SUPER MARIO MAKER 2 |
| 34 | 8 | MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN |
| 7 | 9 | GRAND THEFT AUTO V |
| 9 | 10 | TOM CLANCY’S THE DIVISION 2 |
| 20 | 11 | FIFA 19 |
| 8 | 12 | RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 |
| 11 | 13 | MINECRAFT: PLAYSTATION EDITION |
| 6 | 14 | MINECRAFT |
| 18 | 15 | FORZA HORIZON 4 |
| 4 | 16 | MORTAL KOMBAT 11 |
| 13 | 17 | SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE |
| 5 | 18 | SUPER MARIO ODYSSEY |
| 21 | 19 | SEA OF THIEVES |
| 17 | 20 | THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD |
| 12 | 21 | NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. U DELUXE |
| NE | 22 | COLLECTION OF MANA |
Source: UKIE, GamesIndustry.biz
