As the year is coming to an end, it’s inevitable we’re going to see recaps and rankings about what happened during 2018…and the eShop charts make no exception! Indeed, Nintendo of America recently published a list of the “best-selling games on the Nintendo Switch system released in 2018” as they say, while detailing it’s based on the top downloads on Nintendo eShop and Nintendo.com of “full titles released in 2018”. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the yearly ranking for the Americas!

The Top 3 (but good part of the Top 10 as a whole) makes it perfectly clear how the chart is based on the amount of downloads each title generated with no distinction between paid items and free-to-play titles, as Fortnite shows up at the top, followed by the surprising Fallout Shelter at 2nd and Paladins at 3rd. Other f2p games appearing in the Top 10 include Warframe (5th) and Arena of Valor (6th).

Speaking of paid titles, it’s no surprise that Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the one charting the highest, at 4th, in spite of its release less than one month ago, followed by Minecraft (7th) and Team Cherry’s masterpiece Hollow Knight (8th); the latter is also the best selling indie title of the year on the Switch, at least in the Americas, with Celeste following closely at 10th and Super Mario Party dividing the two (9th).

While it may appear surprising at first to see both SKUs of Pokémon outside of the Top 10 (12th and 13th respectively), it should be noted that the game as a whole would definitely be quite higher by combining the two versions.

Other interesting appearances include Octopath Traveler (16th), Diablo III: Eternal Collection (19th) and Okami HD at 22nd.

Finally, while NoA specified the ranking included specifically “titles released in 2018”, there are three games that saw their original releases back in 2017: Minecraft, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (25th) and Golf Story (26th). However, it should also be noticed that Mojang’s phenomenon saw a massive change with the shift to the cross-platform Bedrock Edition, which acted as a relaunch of the game as a whole, while Golf Story received a retail release from Limited Run, which may be why both games are considered “full titles released in 2018” in spite of their 2017 first debut on the eShop. Instead, it’s still not clear enough why Shovel Knight is in the ranking (at the time of this article’s publication), since its retail release is slated for April 9th, 2019.

01. Fortnite (Epic Games) {2018.06.12}
02. Fallout Shelter (Bethesda) {2018.06.10}
03. Paladins (Hi-Rez Studios) {2018.06.12}
04. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo) {2018.12.07}
05. Warframe (Digital Extremes) {2018.11.20}
06. Arena of Valor (Tencent Games) {2018.09.25}
07. Minecraft (Mojang / Microsoft) {2017.05.12}
08. Hollow Knight (Team Cherry) {2018.06.12}
09. Super Mario Party (Nintendo) {2018.10.05}
10. Celeste (Matt Makes Games Inc.) {2018.01.25}
11. Mario Tennis Aces (Nintendo) {2018.06.22}
12. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! (Nintendo) {2018.11.16}
13. Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! (Nintendo) {2018.11.16}
14. Dead Cells (Motion Twin) {2018.08.07}
15. Overcooked! 2 (Team 17) {2018.08.07}
16. Octopath Traveler (Nintendo) {2018.07.13}
17. Undertale (8-4) {2018.09.18}
18. Kirby Star Allies (Nintendo) {2018.03.16}
19. Diablo III: Eternal Collection (Blizzard) {2018.11.02}
20. Wizard of Legend (Humble Bundle) {2018.05.15}
21. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze {2018.05.04}
22. Okami HD (Capcom) {2018.08.09}
23. Darkest Dungeon (Red Hook Studios) {2018.01.18}
24. Crash Bandicoot N.Sane Trilogy (Activision) {2018.06.29}
25. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove (Yacth Club Games) {2017.03.03}
26. Golf Story (Sidebar Games) {2017.09.28}