Hogwarts Legacy, The Last of Us, and Starfield are some of the games people searched for the most on Google over the past year
Don't worry, Baldur's Gate 3 also made the top 10
Hogwarts Legacy and The Last of Us were the top-searched games of 2023, with Starfield, Baldur's Gate 3, and Diablo 4 following shortly after.
Google has shared its trending searches for the year and we're not that surprised which games made its top 10 list. Alongside topics like people, actors, movies, TV shows, musicians, songs, and more, Google has shared the top game terms people searched for in 2023. Unsurprisingly, magical RPG Hogwarts Legacy took the top spot, shortly followed by The Last of Us, and other big hitters of the year.
If you look at the trends provided by Google, we can see that interest around Hogwarts Legacy peaked in early February - which makes a lot of sense since the game was initially released for PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X on February 10, 2023. Other versions of the game, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, were also released throughout the year, which could've also driven searches well beyond February. Hogwarts Legacy's successful launch as well as the Hogwarts Legacy controversy could have also driven interest.
The second-highest game to land on the top-searched games list is The Last of Us. Since the highest topic in the TV category is The Last of Us TV series, I'm not surprised by the game's new-found popularity at all. Plus, in case you forgot, we also found out about the The Last of Us Part 2 remastered - which was announced last month and is set to release in January 2024. All in all, it's been a busy year for Naughty Dog and its fans.
Other noticeable games in the top 10 include Bethesda's highly anticipated release, Starfield (number five), Baldur's Gate 3 (number six) - which is the least surprising of all considering it won not only Ultimate Game of the Year at The Golden Joystick Awards but also GOTY at The Game Awards 2023 - Suika Game (number seven) which took Vtubers by storm in October, and Diablo 4 (number eight), and Sons of the Forest (number 10).
Surprisingly, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom didn't manage to make the list at all.
It's certainly been a big year for games, find out what the future holds with our new games 2023 list.
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After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.