Atomic Heart is 2023's most popular Xbox launch so far, first week data suggests

Soviet sci-fi shooter Atomic Heart looks to be off to a great start, with first week player data pointing to Mundfish's debut release being the most popular new Xbox game of 2023 so far.

Atomic Heart launched into Xbox Game Pass last week, and according to first week player data, it's 2023's most popular new Xbox release to date, surpassing the likes of Hogwarts Legacy and fellow Game Pass heavy hitters such as GoldenEye 007 and Hi-Fi Rush.

Atomic Heart is the biggest Xbox launch of 2023 so far, according to first week player data

Here on TrueAchievements, which now has a healthy sample pool of over one million registered and tracked players, the first week numbers show Atomic Heart sitting pretty with almost 120,000 people having stepped into the boots of P-3 to go take on some out-of-control robots. That's around 20k more than Hogwarts Legacy picked up in its first full week (and that even had the benefit of a few extra days of early access players prior to its official launch date), and well ahead of GoldenEye and Hi-Fi Rush, both of which had around 70,000 tracked players in their first week.

Late last year, High on Life quickly became the most successful third-party Game Pass launch ever, and while Atomic Heart isn't exactly close to the 160k week-one TA players that Squanch Games' comedy shooter picked up, it's still well ahead of every other big Game Pass drop of 2022. Last year's top Game Pass launches (aside from High on Life) came in tens of thousands lower than Atomic Heart in their first week, meaning Mundfish's newcomer has trounced the likes of PowerWash Simulator, Deathloop, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Tunic, Scorn, and the rest. Not bad for the studio's first game, huh? Now if only we could get a fix for those broken achievements...

Glad to see Atomic Heart doing so well? Which games coming to Game Pass might be able to compete with Mundfish's robotic rampage? Let us know!

More Atomic Heart stories:

Data Analysis

Written by Luke Albigés

Luke runs the TA news team, contributing where he can primarily with reviews and other long-form features — crafts he has honed across two decades of print and online gaming media experience, having worked with the likes of gamesTM, Eurogamer, Play, Retro Gamer, Edge, and many more. He loves all things Monster Hunter, enjoys a good D&D session, and has played way too much Destiny.