Fallout 4 surpasses 12 million shipments on launch day

Fallout 4 has made an impressive shipments record by reaching the 12 million mark on its launch day on November 10. The open world action role-playing video game – part of the 18 year-old Fallout franchise – is available worldwide on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Windows.

Bethesda Softworks – the publisher of the Fallout games since 2014 – has announced that it has sold $750m (£492m, €696m) worth of Fallout 4 copies on the first day of its launch. That figure beats the $400m first-week sales of Halo 5: Guardians, which became the "top-selling" Xbox One title in October. Bethesda also says the Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition sold out within hours of its launch last week.

"We're extremely proud of Todd Howard, Game Director at Bethesda Game Studios, and his experienced team of developers for their talent and dedication in creating this extraordinary game," said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks, in a statement. "Fallout 4 is a masterpiece in game development and storytelling, providing fans hundreds of hours of fun as they explore and are challenged by this fascinating, beautifully crafted world."

Bethesda says that retailers have received "tremendous consumer interest" in Fallout 4, while the Fallout 4 Pip-Boy Edition was the "fastest-selling collector's edition" of any videogame in history.

Fallout 4 has already broken Grand Theft Auto 5's record of concurrent players on Steam, with 470,000 players, and set the record of the "most viewed game launch of all 2015 games" on Twitch.

"A huge thanks to our fans that've made this all possible," Todd Howard, Fallout 4's game director, said in the statement. "After four years of development, it's not complete until our fans get to play it and make it their own. We can't wait to hear about their adventures."

Fallout 4 is set in a post-apocalyptic Boston, and has gamers enter a world destroyed by nuclear war as the sole survivor of an underground nuclear shelter, Vault 111. It is the successor to Fallout 3, which Bethesda released in December 2008.

Fallout 4 is available for PS4, Xbox One and PC now.

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