If you're anything like us, you'll have a strange obsession with keeping an eye on how many hours you've put into your favourite games. There's something oddly satisfying about seeing your Splatoon 2 hour count reach unhealthy numbers as you sit down for another night of inking the town neon pink - or is that just us?
Regardless, Nintendo has now issued an official list of the most-played Switch games of 2019, based on players' play time. To be as clear as possible, the ranking below is "based on time played on all Nintendo Switch consoles with a European Nintendo Account for which data sharing is enabled".
1. Fortnite
2. The Legend Zelda: Breath of the Wild
3. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
4. Minecraft
5. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
6. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!
7. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee!
8. Super Mario Odyssey
9. FIFA 19
10. Splatoon 2
11. Pokémon Sword
12. Pokémon Shield
13. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe
14. Super Mario Party
15. Super Mario Maker 2
16. Fire Emblem: Three Houses
17. FIFA 18
18. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening
19. Diablo III: Eternal Collection
20. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
It's not surprising to see that nothing could topple Fortnite's immense popularity, but it is interesting to see just how important Zelda: Breath of the Wild is to the system. Still, despite being a launch title, the game is consistently being bought and played and seems to be serving as the Switch's killer app.
Pokémon Sword and Shield nearing the top ten is also an impressive feat considering they were only available for a month a half of 2019.
Does this list look anything like your own? Are you surprised by any of the games listed? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
Comments 74
Fortnite gets the top spot because it is free? First!
Diablo III: Eternal Collection is such a fun hour sink.
The Switch version is most fun of all since you know … doing greater rifts on the toilet!
Diablo and Mario + Rabids sneaking in are the only slight surprises there. The rest are all pretty obvious, for better or for worse.
Too bad that Switch don't have activity log like 3DS and Wii U.
I guess my 150 hours of Ashes Cricket wasn't enough to register!
How is Tetris 99 not there?! Can’t be just me who has sunk some serious hours in to that game.
Two versions of fifa prove that people do want sports games and will play them. Madden and NHL would go over massively.
Isn't there any privacy law in Europe? Nintendo is looking at user's playing hours, that's so creepy.
Well I've only played 5 of them at all this year and only 8 in total, I think I've spent the most time with Mario Maker 2 and Doom this year, with Astral Chain not far behind
@Moistnado being free just means anyone can download it. But in order to be on top of this list is a mark of how long people have been playing it...
At the moment, CTR tops my most played list
@NoTinderLife only data that Switch owners have chosen to share, you don’t have to.
@NoTinderLife I think there’s a warning or option to submit certain data to Nintendo for research purposes...
@NoTinderLife Why dont you text that in WhatsApp to your friends and wait until some Nintendo ad pops up on your Facebook feed?
I think there is nothing special in publishing non-personalized user data. It's also allowed by the users in form of the terms of agreement.
@Justifier This, so darn much. It irks me to hell and back that I can't have as detailed a breakdown as I did on the 3DS. Wii U's log was not quite as good, but was still plenty better than what the Switch offers.
On topic, somewhat disappointed Fire Emblem Three Houses was not higher, but then again, compared to the games higher on the list, it did not sell as much, so I suppose it is proportional. I am somewhat surprised Link's Awakening managed to squeeze on the list due to the fact the game is short, and disappointed also that Luigi's Mansion 3 did not make it but overall, not too surprising.
Not surprising. Some great games
Who the hell is still playing Fifa 18? And 19 for that matter? Obviously no one got the memo
@MS7000 @justifier the most annoying this is, that after downloading the Parental Controls app, there's a full comprehensive play log to view. I can see precisely how long my son has spent on youtube, Yoshi's Crafted World etc, with full daily breakdowns, monthly summaries etc. Baffling!
The number of hours played is broken if you have more than one Switch, so this is bound to be incorrect
Fortnite...
... why? It's not even fun.
@Scottwood101 I have downloaded the Parental Controls App but as someone who does not have kids it is annoying that I have to open up a separate app just to view breakdowns of this information. Not to mention that it still is not as useful as the 3DS log.
For example the monthly breakdowns for most played games based on how many days of the month they were played, not hours (EDIT: There is also a time section, but it seems to show a coloured bar rather than a figure; the only figure shown is average playtime per day). This also builds into the fact that I cannot see total playtime for individual months or years or for individual games during those periods. The Wii U also allowed this, though it was not as easy to collate all the information.
If there is something I am missing then I will happily retract some of these arguments, but I still argue that it is dumb that I have to download something separate when it should be all in one place.
@NoTinderLife
If you're thinking of GDPR... it only applies when an individual can be identified. These are "rolled up" aggregate stats, so it's fine.
Aw!!! My 920 hours on The Binding Of Isaac didn't impact! Nor my 170 on Dead Cells. Darn. Maybe next year! 😆
@Ooyah I would love to see a top 50 list of this, surely Binding of Isaac will be in there too Also one of my top 5 played games.
@Stocksy Can confirm. I picked up Fifa 19 on a big discount and before I knew it, it was my 4th most played game. I'd love a good wintersports/skiing/snowboarding game on the Switch tbh.
@Cissero
Always glad to see another Isaac fan! 😆 I wonder if we will get Repentance?
p. s. If you like rogue-lites in general, Dead Cells is also amazing. I am currently also tempted by Black Future '88. Has anybody reading this played that?
@Zuljaras yeh i spent several hours playing diablo and found it a button mashing bore fest. Traded it for my money back. Just not my cup of tea.
I’m glad FE 3 houses is there. Will be going back for my 2nd playthrough after DQXIS
@KnightsTemplar Yep. It is a matter of taste just as every other game.
@sanderev its one of a kind... and yes it is fun. Maybe your just not that good.... fortnight is well deserving of the number one spot...
Hm, no Stardew Valley!?
@SquareOneMJ I know right? I'm not even a huge Tetris fan and even I invested like 50 hours into Tetris 99. Finding a match online is pretty much instant so I think there's a good amount of players playing it. Seems kind of weird to not see it on the list.
@Ooyah Deadcells is still on my wishlist haha. ive played many rogue-lites, but non got even close to the hours of enjoyment i got out of isaac
Surely we'll get repentance. I believe Isaac was a big succes on Switch cant wait!
@SquareOneMJ Strange omission indeed, played it to bits as well
@sanderev I agree with you but that's an opinion. The millions of kids who own a switch enjoy it and that's okay
My two most played games are Rocket League (395 hours) and Splatoon 2 (295 hours). The latter is a strange one as it feels like I've hardly played it and can go months between sessions. I think it's just because I played the original so much. It is my most played game ever, with over 1000 hours logged on that bad boy.
@SquareOneMJ I think I've put about 30 hours into Tetris 99. I'll check when I'm home, could be more. I racked up 95 hours on Puyo Puyo Tetris but haven't played that since 99 came out.
I have to say I'm a bit surprised that Fortnite is number 1. I can't play it on Switch because of the lag.
@SquareOneMJ I think I saw Tetris 99 in the US list.
@Justifier agreed. I also miss the hundred other features the wiiu and 3ds had
Not many Rocket Leaguers on Switch then
Is this total hours across everybody or average per person that owns the game?
I’m really happy to see Zelda so high up the list, maybe Nintendo will focus a bit more on Zelda than Mario now. I like Mario but it hasn’t ever been a favorite of mine.
And people wonder why would anyone play fortnite on switch, if only they could drop out of their high horse and realize that framerates, while it obviously matters a lot and so is resolution, playing the game is top priority.
A lot of very good games in the list. It’s a predictable list, but a very strong one.
@Faruko
There were people who didn’t think Fortnite on the Switch was a big deal, and couldn’t understand why Nintendo were making such a fuss about it at E3 2018.
@vanmunt How did I not know this is thing? I would play as Steve Smith but that would make it too easy.
@xxx128 Agreed. Maybe it was high expectations but I don't get the love for that game. I am down with endless grinding but the game needs to be fun for that to work.
Basically people buy a Switch to play Nintendo games.
EA killed what little sales they had with Legacy Edition. If they had released a decent version from the start, it would have cut out a solid base. Done and buried at this point.
Hopefully they learn something for when they release Madden on Switch.
@Scottwood101 I am pretty sure they did get the memo. It read "don't bother buying the next in the series because it is just the same bloody game with a few names changed"
@Justifier yea, it was EA who did all that for Nintendo so Nintendo don't have the source code to do that.
@matdub @scottwood101
Exactly right. I bought Fifa 18 and it was ok (much better than 13 on the WiiU when that launched). Skipped 19 cos I don't need to buy every year, and was planning on buying 20 to get two years worth of improvements. When they said it was legacy I skipped it, so now just play 18 every now and then. If they make a proper version again I'll maybe upgrade but until then stick with what I have.
@NoTinderLife that was my first thought, but I kinda like having that info. Is no different than Facebook or Google spying on you and selling your info/habits.
Huh, only own 6 of those games, wish there was a way to see this, (yearly that is, not monthly using the parental control app)
Other than BotW and Diablo, I haven't played anything on this list on my Switch for any significant length of time--played plenty of Smash on my son's Switch though. My top game is MHGU with nearly 500 hours, and second is Octopath with 180 hours.
Curious what the NA list would look like.
It is really interesting that both FIFA 18 and 19 made the list, but FIFA 20 did not. That really sends a message to EA about their horrible legacy edition decision.
I wonder what's the difference between first and second place.
I did not play nearly of those games this year and definitely not for long. The ones I played the most are
The Witcher 3 - 120h
Dragon quest XI - 90h
Final fantasy XII - 75h
I can tell from my personal experience that Nintendo's hour tracking is broken. Around October-November, I was traveling and my Switch was rarely connected to the internet. So, while the console was raking up durations, the online report showed very low hour count at the end of the month.
@Gwynbleidd Not even close Bulgaria.
Why?
only reason Pokemon is in the top ten is people with no lives are shiny hunting
Mine are BotW and CTR. I put a decent amount of hours into Odyssey but 100% that and didn't play again so it's less than 200.
@Gwynbleidd Smart marketing strategy!
@SquareOneMJ I've just checked my Tetris 99 play time and I was slightly off..... by around 90 hours! 30 hours / 120 hours, easy mistake to make.
I've also logged 120 hours on Puyo Puyo Tetris. So that's 240 hours of Tetris (I don't like Puyo Puyo), bloody hell!
@OorWullie hey, when you first replied to me I was too embarrassed to tell you my Tetris 99 playtime... but now I’m comfortable telling you I’ve played for 145+ hours! When I was at a Christmas market in Belfast I saw some Oor Wullie merchandise and immediately thought of you!
@Gwynbleidd
It’ll have been the best selling Switch game of the year and most people who bought it will have put a lot of time in it so seems pretty plausible to me.
The most amazing thing here is BotW being in 2nd place. It's a single player RPG, and it's in... SECOND PLACE. OVER MINECRAFT and other games which typically reach insane numbers.
Absolutely amazing.
@Gwynbleidd
It’s not my thing either but I see it as the kind of game where loads of people have been putting hours and hours in since it came out.
Or maybe its linked to the Parental Controls and the age of Pokemon players, I dunno. But seems pretty believable to me.
Civ 6, Into the Breach, LA, amd FE3H for me.
My backlog is going to stay a backlog
Stardew Valley anyone?!
So there are people who bought Fifa 19 ...... What a shame
Mine are (in order): Digimon, Pokemon Shield, Splatoon 2 way out in front. All the rest are an hour here, 3 hours there, etc. Probably doesn't help that I have a Switch backlog that's as tall as I am, and an Xbox One and PS4 backlog twice as tall as that. At this rate I might as well just get a new hobby.
If it's okay for people to say all the games I love are bad and don't deserve their sales or popularity it is fair for me to say the same about Fortnite right?
I'm saying it. It's only popular because it's free to download. It's a snowball bacause of peer pressure and trendiness.
It's just not that good of a game. If it had released as a traditional game with everything unlocked by in game progress it would never have taken off.
I hate the free to play microtransaction unlockables format so bloody much. It's warpping the whole industry in a bad way!
Or maybe I am just the grumpy old man complaining about change I don't like...
@electrolite77
The Fortnite hate-train on this site is ridiculous. I myself am not a huge fan, but I understand the appeal and don't go accusing all Fortnite players of being degenerate 8 year-olds or the likes.
Heck, even I had to log-in just to see that Star Wars Episode IX cross-over event, which was actually quite cool (and better than the actual movie).
@westman98
I’ve never played it, but I don’t get the criticism of it. If others want to play it and enjoy it they’re welcome to. Same way that I’m not into e.g. COD or Battlefield or Minecraft or Overwatch, each to their own.
Smash, Fire Emblem, Breath of the Wild and Puyo Tetris top my list.
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