RPG: Fria Ligan’s Alien Breaks Into Top 5
In a surprising turn, the new Alien RPG breaks into the top 5 best-selling RPGs for Fall 2019, according to the latest data from ICv2.
They might not be able to hear you scream in space, but they can certainly hear you roleplay. At least that’s the impression we’re getting according to ICv2’s chart of the top 5 RPGs by sales in Fall 2019. Fria Ligan, publishers of Tales from the Loop and new stewards of the Lord of the Rings license, released Alien late last year to much fanfare. Published with the assistance of Modiphius, the Alien RPG left a great impression on us–and apparently on gamers all over.
via ICv2
This chart of the Top 5 Roleplaying Games (hobby channel) reflects sales in Fall 2019. The charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers.
This move edges out Vampire: the Masquerade, and Starfinder, which had previously been sitting in positions 4 and 2. Pathfinder has shot up, along with Shadowrun 6th Edition, which seems to finally be over the initial hurdles, typos, and edits needed to fix its release copy. And though Fantasy Flight appears to be shuttering its RPG department, their Star Wars game is going strong–though all of this pales in comparison to D&D, which is the massive continental shelf holding up the rest of the RPG industry.
As an example, there are more than 23 million characters on D&D Beyond, that’s more D&D characters than there are players using a service like Roll20.
We’re pleased to see Alien doing so well. The game is quite fun, with its mix of hard sci-fi gameplay suited to either a long-term campaign, or shorter, scarier one-shots that lean into the cinematic aspect of the game. This year will be an interesting one–a lot of popular licenses are coming up, including Fallout and Dune, both of which are published under Modiphius. We’ll be keeping an eye on what games are winning big.
Happy Adventuring!
