Following on from our earlier article today featuring Google’s top searches of 2023 we decided to have a look at what games were the most popular searches of the year.
There is no doubt it has been a stellar year for gaming, with many huge titles finally coming up for air that we had been expecting last year – such as Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield. These games and many more were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and while in some cases that allowed the hype and anticipation to grow, for others it meant they never quite lived up to expectations.
Hogwarts Legacy, which came out at the beginning of 2023, and missed out on any nominations at the recent Games Awards, was the most searched game of the year. It was tremendously successful and also had some controversy around JK Rowling and a campaign to boycott it, circling around it which may have just helped it clinch the top spot.
The Last of Us featured in second place, but this will have been, in no short measure, down to the hugely popular TV show adaptation that also arrived this year.
Battleground Mobile India is the fourth most searched highlighting the huge popularity of gaming there, and another location-specific title was スイカ ゲーム, or Suika Game – A Japanese puzzle game.
The strangest one to see in the list was the New York Times game – Connections. The NYT, fresh from its success story of purchasing Wordle, seems to have found a niche with its ubiquitous puzzling genre that can be played by just about anybody.
Two of the other big videogame releases do appear in the list with the highly anticipated Baldur’s Gate 3 (the Game of the Year) and Diablo IV making the cut.
It was also heartening to see a small studio with Endnight Games survival sequel to The Forest, Sons of the Forest, completing the top 10. Sons of the Forest was another game that had seen several delays during its development cycle following the surprise breakout success of the first game.
Google’s Top Ten most searched games of 2023
1 Hogwarts Legacy
2 The Last of Us
3 Connections
4 Battlegrounds Mobile India
5 Starfield
6 Baldur’s Gate 3
7 スイカ ゲーム (Suika Game)
8 Diablo IV
9 Atomic Heart
10 Sons of the Forest
Featured image: Blizzard
