Halo's PS5 debut was outsold by GTA 5, Minecraft, and even Palworld
Halo: Campaign Evolved came ninth on July’s PlayStation sales chart, outsold not just by Call of Duty ports but by a 13-year-old GTA 5, Minecraft, and Palworld. The first Halo on PlayStation got buried by the catalog.
Halo‘s historic first appearance on PlayStation didn’t just lose to Call of Duty. It lost to a 13-year-old game, a decade-old sandbox, and a monster-catching game that wears its Pokémon influence on its sleeve.
According to Alinea Analytics estimates, Halo: Campaign Evolved sold about 351,000 copies on PS5 in July, landing it ninth on the month’s PlayStation sales chart. Everything above it tells an embarrassing story for what was supposed to be a landmark launch.
The games that outsold Halo on Sony’s console read like a catalog clearance sale.
Who beat Halo on PlayStation in July
The list is rough, and the age of some entries makes it rougher.
Ahead of Campaign Evolved: the two Call of Duty: Black Ops ports (a combined 11.2 million), Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced (1.6 million), EA Sports FC 26 (1.3 million), EA Sports College Football 27 (1.1 million), Grand Theft Auto 5 (846,000), Minecraft (501,000), and Palworld (479,000).
Sit with a couple of those. GTA 5 came out in 2013 and outsold the brand-new Halo remake by more than two to one. Palworld, the “Pokémon with guns” survival game that launched its 1.0 update, pulled in nearly 500,000 new PlayStation players and beat Halo too.
Why this is worse than the Call of Duty comparison
The CoD story was already bad. This is the part that stings more.
Losing to two beloved Call of Duty games, even barebones ports, has an explanation: nostalgia plus a cheap PS Plus launch discount. But getting outsold by a 13-year-old GTA 5 and an indie survival game means Halo didn’t just lose to hyped competition, it lost to games PlayStation owners already had access to for years, or could grab for cheap.
As Alinea’s Rhys Elliott put it, July’s PlayStation chart was “all about nostalgia and the catalogue.” A proven old game at the right price out-earns almost anything new. Halo, at $60 for a remake of a 2001 game, was the wrong game at the wrong price, and the catalog ate it alive.
The bigger Halo problem
This connects to a very bad month for the franchise.
Campaign Evolved also underperformed on Halo’s home turf, only around 900,000 on Xbox and 212,000 on Steam. And days after these numbers surfaced, Halo Studios laid off staff, with former employees describing a troubled development rather than blaming the game itself.
Put together, the picture is grim. Halo’s big crossover to PlayStation, meant to prove the series could win a new audience, instead proved that outside its core Xbox fanbase, a 25-year-old franchise name doesn’t move units the way it used to.
Elliott’s wistful note said it best, wondering what could have been if Halo had kept the trajectory it had around Halo 3 and Reach. The catalog it lost to is full of games still on that trajectory. Halo, right now, isn’t.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Alinea Analytics (Rhys Elliott) (August 4, 2026), verified for the 351,000 PS5 estimate, the ninth-place ranking, the “nostalgia and the catalogue” and “$60 was WAY too much” quotes, the ~900,000 Xbox and 212,000 Steam figures, and the Halo 3/Reach trajectory comment
GamingBolt (August 6, 2026), verified for the full July PlayStation chart including GTA 5 (846,000), Minecraft (501,000), and Palworld (479,000) outselling Halo, and the Black Ops ports’ 3 million and 8.2 million figures
WCCFTech (August 2026), verified for Palworld pulling ~479,000 new PlayStation players off its 1.0 update, the nostalgia-and-catalogue framing, and the Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced sales
DualShockers (August 2026), verified for the Halo Studios layoffs following the sales report and the mixed reviews across platforms