The big picture: Some expected Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 to be a low point in the franchise due to its lack of a single-player campaign but as it turns out, that wasn't the case at all. Consumers scooped up the game in droves, perhaps in part due to its inclusion of the battle royale-style game mode Blackout.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is the best-selling game of October and the best-selling game of 2018 according to market research firm The NPD Group.

Activision and Treyarch's first-person shooter also earned honors as the eighth biggest launch in US video game history since The NPD Group started tracking sales in 1995 and is the second best-selling game of the last 12 months behind Call of Duty: WWII.

Some may be surprised to learn that Black Ops 4 outsold Red Dead Redemption 2 but there's likely at least one good reason for that. The latest Call of Duty title arrived on October 12 while Red Dead Redemption 2 didn't ship until October 26. More days on the market obviously gives CoD more exposure and potential sales.

Nevertheless, RDR 2 was the second best-selling game of October and the number two selling game of 2018. According to The NPD Group, launch month sales were more than three times higher than the original Red Dead Redemption.

Rounding out the top five best-selling games in October 2018 are Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, NBA 2K19 and Super Mario Party, in that order. Far Cry 5, Marvel's Spider-Man and NBA 2K19 are now the third, fourth and fifth best-selling games of the year, respectively, as of the end of last month.