Today, Ubisoft announced that Watch Dogs sold through more copies in its first 24 hours of availability than any previous title in the company’s history*.

Players were understandably eager to get their hands on Watch Dogs, one of the most anticipated and critically-acclaimed titles of 2014. Reviews praised Watch Dogs’ hacking gameplay, breadth of content, seamless nature and the depth of the open-world experience.

Ubisoft’s co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot weighed in on Watch Dogs’ early success, saying, “Watch Dogs is an amazing achievement and our teams should be proud that the creativity, innovation and long hours they invested in making this game are paying off. It’s great to see so many players enjoying the game, and it shows that Watch Dogs has cracked the code for developing a new blockbuster IP and a thoroughly new-gen experience.”

Watch Dogs is set in Chicago and lets players become Aiden Pearce, a brilliant hacker seeking justice following a violent family tragedy. Pearce hacks into Chicago’s Central Operating System (ctOS), which controls the city’s infrastructure (security cameras, traffic lights, public transportation and more) as well as key data on the city’s residents. The game uses the all-new Disrupt game engine to deliver stunning visuals and an incredibly immersive world.

* based upon internal estimates for Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs worldwide sales data for all platforms as of May 28, 2014