The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the most talked about game of E3 2016

If you’re a fan of video games and you’ve spent much time on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media network over the past couple of days, you’ve probably noticed a recurring theme. Amidst the discussion of a reimagined God of War, a teaser from Kojima productions, and more VR tech demos than you can shake a Move controller at, one title seems to be on absolutely every gamer’s radar: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Thanks to Brandwatch, a social media monitoring tool, we can take an empirical look at this trend, and see how Nintendo and the latest Zelda title stack up against the rest of what’s being shown off at this year’s expo.

Looking at individual games, Breath of the Wild has been mentioned far more on popular social media platforms than any other title at the show. It has seen nearly double the engagement of its next closest competitor, Battlefield 1.

Unsurprisingly, the rest of Nintendo’s titles rated much lower on the list. Even Pokemon Sun and Moon were below the middle of the pack, consistent with the amount of time Nintendo spent showcasing the new titles. Even during the second day of the show, when a wide variety of upcoming titles were shown – including a brand new IP – Zelda continued to dominate the Nintendo conversation.

Comparing overall showings and conferences from each of the big publisher/developers, Microsoft was the clear victor at this year’s E3, followed by Ubisoft and Sony.

It’s exciting to see such strong online engagement with Nintendo’s latest and greatest. As exciting as it was to see a Wii U title shine as the most popular game of E3 this year, its importance to Nintendo goes far beyond the current hardware. Here’s hoping this is an early sign that NX will see a strong start when it launches alongside Breath of the Wild next March.

Thanks to our colleagues at Nintendo Life for pointing out this data.

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