The Witcher 3 was 2015's most talked-about game

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt was the most talked-about video game of 2015, according to an analyst who tracked media chatter and trends over the past year.

The open-world RPG from CD Projekt RED edged out Fallout 4 for total number games press articles over the past year, closely followed by Grand Theft Auto 5, a game whose original release came in 2013.

ICO Partners, which put together the analysis, surmises that The Witcher 3 got its coverage based on the game's quality, where Fallout 4's discussion was restricted to about half the length of the year. Fallout 4 was formally revealed in June 2015, where The Witcher 3's public development history goes back to February 2013.

The inference is that The Witcher 3 got copy because it lived up to expectations and sustained them over the game's release, where Fallout 4 was covered mainly for its surprise and pre-release anticipation.

Star Wars: Battlefront got a ton of mainstream traction because it is "the comeback of a beloved name, a Star Wars game released close to [The Force Awakens] and the Battlefield/DICE FPS of the holidays." All of these are valid points. They're also why Electronic Arts banked on 10 million units sold before launch, regardless of media coverage.

Other nuggets in the analysis pull out a solid performance for Splatoon — a new concept on a single platform (with the lowest installation base of any) and Bloodborne, another console exclusive that racked up a ton of eyeballs thanks to a spring launch window against minimal competition. Bloodborne was roughly comparable to Destiny in terms of number of articles, and both swamped Halo 5: Guardians and, for all of its esports tie-ins,League of Legends.