It Takes Two, the game of 2021 by The Game Awards 2021, has sold five million copies, according to the official Twitter account of Hazelight Studios, the software company. Hazelight last released sales figures for her game in October, when 3 million games were sold. Having sold one million units in April, two million in June, and three million in October 2021, Hazelight Studios It Takes Two continues to do well, with over five million units sold since launch. Announcing on Twitter the latest major sales milestone for It Takes Twos — a milestone that means the game has managed to sell another two million copies since Hazelight’s last sales update offer in October 2021 “now the players are enjoying our game”— said the developer.
With sales of 5 million copies, It Takes Two became the most successful Hazelight game of all time, surpassing 2018’s A Way Out which sold over 3.5 million copies. As for our 2021, It Takes Two was also fantastic, earning a nomination for Best Platformer, second place for Best Multiplayer, and the first prize for Best Co-Op. One of It Takes Two’s unique strengths is the built-in Friend Pass, which means you only need one copy of the game to play with someone online. It has also been pointed out that selling 5 million copies means the game has at least 10 million players, which is actually a good point.
Given that the game comes with a Friends Pass that allows owners to play with a friend even if it doesn’t belong to them and the fact that it’s currently also available to EA Play or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, there are probably a lot of people who also played the game. Personally, I hope that the success of It Takes Two will demonstrate to the industry that gamers still enjoy smaller, more focused games because not many studios make titles like this in the AA and AAA categories.
At launch, the game received praise from gamers and critics alike and ended up stealing the show by winning The Game Awards 2021 last December. It ended up surpassing several awards such as Game of the Year, including Game Rants owning the top 10 games of 2021 and The Game Awards. Game Informer rated the game 9.25 out of 10, the game received “generally favorable reviews”.
The game comes after the debut adventure Hazelights A Way Out, which was released in 2018. After the release of A Way Out in 2018, the team decided to make another video game together because they had a more experienced and improved team and the team felt they could further improve and expand on the game concepts presented in A Way Out.
As such, Hazelight Studios had to forget to build a brand for their game. The program allowed Hazelight to retain full creative control while still making the most of the game’s profits after recovering development costs. In January 2022, Hazelight Studios announced that they had teamed up with Dimitri M. Johnson and his DJ2 Entertainment to adapt the game for television and film.
Hazelight may have had to drop the game’s branding due to publisher Take-Two’s statement, but that clearly hasn’t stopped people from finding and enjoying the game. The happy thought for fans of the game and Hazelight themselves is that there could be a low-key puzzle game that they are working on more projects as a result of the high number of copies that this sold, it also gives strong hopes that “adventure together is here to stay”. Now it’s just a game of waiting to see how it will be translated into another medium. Achieving such a milestone is unique, and it’s interesting to see where the studio goes next.
