Resident Evil Requiem shows how sequels can drive sales of previous releases

Capcom’s latest financial results highlight a recurring trend: announcing a new franchise title can boost sales and player engagement with previous games.

The announcement of Resident Evil Requiem at Summer Game Fest last June, supported by extensive marketing, led to higher sales of Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Village.

Remedy saw a similar uplift for its 2019 title Control after announcing its sequel, Control: Resonant. Its recent financial report states that Control sold an additional one million copies in 2025 after Resonant’s reveal at The Game Awards in December.

Sony also reported a significant revenue increase after releasing Ghost of Yōtei, the sequel to 2020’s Ghost of Tsushima. Yōtei has sold 3.3 million copies since its launch on October 2, 2025, surpassing Tsushima’s sales in the same period.

According to data from Video Game Insights, the original title experienced a sales spike on Yōtei’s launch day – across both PlayStation and Steam, despite the sequel only being released on console.

VGI describes major sequels as being a massive marketing engine that can “create a second launch period.” But the impact is not due solely to the act of releasing the new game.

Circana’s Mat Piscatella notes that the positive effects of a new game in a franchise are “driven in large part by increased promotion of the catalogue in both marketing and PR messaging efforts.”

Significant discounting and adding these titles to subscription services can increase player numbers and overall revenue as well.

Looking closely at Requiem and its effect on Resident Evil Village in particular, Piscatella observed that the legacy title received more frequent promotion and deeper discounts after Requiem’s reveal, resulting in higher engagement.

Data from Circana’s Player Pulse tracker shows that before the announcement, Village, which launched in 2021, was promoted in-store in the US but not digitally or by email. After Summer Game Fest, promotion increased across more channels and has continued ahead of the game’s release on February 27, 2026.

Regarding pricing, Piscatella notes that Village followed a “classic high-low pricing pattern” on Steam before Requiem’s reveal, retailing between $39.99 and just under $20. After the game was unveiled, the price of Village on Steam dropped to $10. “This more aggressive drop is often met with higher incremental sales lift than a lower per cent discount,” he says.

After Requiem was announced, Village’s active users increased across all platforms, with PlayStation seeing the largest growth, followed by Xbox and PC. Weekly active users more than doubled compared to the week before and after Summer Game Fest, then returned to pre-announcement levels by the end of August.

While announcing a new game in a franchise can spark interest in older titles, Piscatella says publishers seeking to maximise catalogue or legacy sales before a new release should invest in stronger promotion and deeper discounts.

“The bonus effect of that, of course, is to drive interest and purchase intent of the new game,” he explains. “In my experience, this carries over across franchises and genres. The scale of sales and engagement lifts will vary depending on franchise strength as well as the amount and depth of the promotional and discounting efforts. But the data suggest that the principles are consistent.”

There is also data to suggest that anniversary coverage can drive back catalogue sales. VGI suggests that this requires “a commercial catalyst” such as a bundle or discount to incentivise new and old players.

For example, VGI data shows Remedy’s 30th anniversary last year saw a significant sales uptick for Control and Alan Wake, largely driven by its 30th Anniversary Humble Bundle promotion. Monthly active users for Alan Wake 2 also increased in late 2025 after the sequel was featured on PlayStation Plus in October.

VGI says that additional entries in narrative-driven franchises such as Resident Evil, Alan Wake and Ghost of Tsushima and Yōtei see back-catalogue value increase over time, “whereas annual competitive releases often see rapid depreciation of previous entries.”

“Story-driven franchises create narrative debt, where a sequel makes the original game essential rather than obsolete,” a spokesperson said. “In competitive genres like shooters, the new entry typically functions as a replacement, causing the community to move forward rather than spread out to older titles.”