Every game developer hopes that it will make something that becomes hugely popular and best selling, but it's not always easy to predict how well a game will do in the market. One good way to sell loads of copies is to make a widely recognised masterpiece, although even then it's not always assured that such a game will sell in the many tens of millions that others have. But CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3 landed just right and today the Polish developer announced that the third entry in the series has reached a big milestone. On Twitter, the more business-minded account of CD Projekt announced that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has reached more than 50 million copies sold. That is a very big number that few titles reach. It joins Rockstar's masterpiece Red Dead Redemption 2 in the 50-million copies sold bracket, while only a few others have sold more. These include Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, with over 62 million copies, Rockstar's other epic Grand Theft Auto 5 with a staggering 175 million copies, and Minecraft, which has crossed the 200 million mark and some. Related: The Witcher 3’s Novigrad Might Be The Best Video Game City Of All Time Launched in May 2015, it has taken eight years for The Witcher 3 to cross the 50-million copies sold mark, while the game has seen a couple of versions and ports. The game launched on the PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One in 2015, while a Nintendo Switch port, which many found rather miraculous considering the size of the game, launched four years later. But most recently, CDPR released the game on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with attendant spit and polish for the current-gen consoles to make Geralt and his world look better than ever before. No doubt these modern versions helped CDPR sell even more copies.

CD Projekt Red's global community director Marcin Momot also made it known that The Witcher series overall has sold more than 75 million copies, with The Witcher 3 responsible for the bulk of that number. "What a milestone! Thank you!" he wrote. It's been quite the journey for the series.

The first game, The Witcher, launched in 2007 and is only available on PC and Mac. Based on the fantasy novel series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher has since become a global phenomenon and franchise, spawning a popular Netflix adaptation starring Henry Cavill, as well as an anime movie and a spin-off series, while CDPR currently has more Witcher games in development.

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