It is no secret that update and patch days are a bonanza for games, their developers, and publishers. Interest is renewed during this phase among gamers, who can’t wait to try out the new additions and latest tweaks within their favorite title, with even casual and lapsed players joining in to see what the fuss is all about.
Apex Legends was the latest game to witness the fruits of this incredible phenomenon with the release of its new season. Labeled Revelry, Season 16 came out on February 14, and the game saw a mighty increase in its numbers across the board, shattering any illusions that this free-to-play battle royale hero shooter was on the decline.
The most crucial stat to show how successful the new patch is comes in the form of numbers from Steam, where Apex Legends had an all-time peak of 610,433 concurrent players on February 15. This was a day after Season 16 was released by developer Respawn Entertainment.
Revelry helps inflate Apex Legends’ Twitch numbers
Apex Legends has been one of the leading first-person shooter BR games since its release in 2019. Respawn and publisher Electronic Arts have worked hard to ensure it has stayed popular in this market despite the proliferation of similar titles for both consoles and PCs.
Apex Legends might not be the most fancied name when it comes to games being streamed, but it consistently boasts decent numbers. However, things went to another level with the release of the new season’s patch, leading to the above record being created on Steam yesterday.
Moreover, almost all metrics for the game on platforms like Twitch have improved, leading to it more or less trending on social media. What helped bring so many viewers and players towards this beloved game is that many interesting features were added to Season 16, including reworking the game’s class system and assigning each role a unique perk.
Seven characters have also received a much-needed and comprehensive rebalance, while a Team Deathmatch game mode, long requested by the Apex Legends community, was finally added to the game. Last but not least, players can finally lay their hand on a new weapon, the Nemesis energy assault rifle.
Most impressively, after the ALGS: 2023 Split 1 Playoffs, when the game reached a massive high of 2.63 million Hours Watched and 440K Peak Viewers on Twitch, the day of the patch’s release and the day after did the best numbers. February 14 raked in 2.02 million PV, a growth of 286.72% from the previous day, while February 15 saw 2.7 hours worth of in-game content viewed by audiences, a rise of 102.43% from the day the update came out.
Also, on February 14, the number of Peak Channels doubled from the previous day, going from 4.2K to 8.5K channels, further contributing to the success of the entire exercise.
A good illustration of the difference the Season 16 patch has made to Apex Legends’ Twitch viewership is its jump of 150% in Hours Watched among FPS games between the two days preceding the release of Season 16 (February 12 and 13) and the two days after (February 14 and 15), making it #3 most watched FPS game on streaming platforms over the last two days.
Top Twitch Games by PV & HW (Feb 14-15)
Even in the overall list of games, Apex Legends saw quite a growth, jumping ten spots from 24th to 14th over the first two days of the patch’s release. In fact, among actual games on Twitch, it was the fifth most-watched entry on February 14 and 15.
Similarly, it rose by 266% in terms of Peak Viewers over the two days post-release. That helped Apex Legends jump from 12th to 5th in this ranking among FPS games.
The overall list saw Apex Legends make an even better leap, jumping from 47th to 15th in this two-day period, reinforcing the idea of positive news regarding new updates being crucial to a game’s popularity. Such was this rise that Respawn’s title even leapfrogged another recently viral game, Hogwarts Legacy, on this table.
Across all available platforms (Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Mildom, Trovo, Nonolive, NimoTV, AfreecaTV), the game rose handsomely in numbers on the first two days of the patch’s release compared to February 12 and 13. The HW grew by 136.8%, while the PV shot up by 151.6%, showing there was a massive surge in traffic across the former two days.
Streamers get in on the act
Where there is a game trending, streamers are always there to strike while the iron is hot, and it was no different with the release of Apex Legends Season 16. Many of these content creators are regular players of the game, while the others looked to cash in on the excitement generated by the release of the latest patch.
As expected, Twitch turned out to be the most popular site for streaming and watching Apex Legends. The purple platform had a Peak Channels number of 8.5K and Peak Viewers came up to 202.9K, and it looks like this upward trend will continue for a while, across streaming services.
However, what caught the eye the most was the fact that YouTube Gaming also boasted better numbers when it came to top streamers of the action-hero shooter on February 14 and 15. Here, too, key metrics like HW and AV rose by almost 100%, while another key stat, PV, went up by 10%. It truly was a great time to be an Apex Legends gamer and streamer across platforms.
Coming back to Twitch, the two days preceding the update's release saw a steady dose of streams relating to the game, but there was nothing big to shout home about. The top three streamers based on HW for Apex Legends combined for a total of 188K hours viewed by their audiences, which is pretty impressive in itself, but what followed post-release was amazing.
The HW numbers on February 14 and 15 rose exponentially, with second place alone almost matching the combined efforts of the top three from the last two days. The podium finishers here combined for an astonishing 559K hours worth of content watched on the game over the two days after Revelry’s release.
Popular Apex Legends streamers on February 14 and 15
In terms of PV, Apex Legends enjoyed a good increase in numbers, with the top streamers for February 12 to 13 and February 14 to 15 notching numbers of 15K and 41K, respectively. That is almost a threefold rise, which shows how much audiences were interested in getting info on the newest patch released for the FPS title.
Expect these numbers to stay high for some time
It seems that going by the metrics for February, the game will only see more and more players come in to enjoy what has been a newsworthy season addition to Apex Legends. With news of the new patch coming out this month, the title saw a rise in the number of Peak Viewers and Peak Channels for February compared to the first month of the year.
In fact, Peak Viewers output was the highest for Apex Legends in seven months, while it was a six-month high for Peak Channels, showing that the title is far from done and that with such regular additions, it will have a better chance of meeting Respawn’s aim of lasting 20 years.
Even with regard to Average Viewers and Average Channels, the game saw a good rise in numbers. When it comes to the former, Apex Legends saw a high after nine months, which is quite a lengthy gap, while it was a six-month wait for it to top its previous high in terms of AV.
Apex Legends’ latest Season 16 update, Revelry, has caused a stir in the gaming community, and it has proved that when it comes to updates and patches, games will always see an upward trend, at least initially. How long this phase lasts is up for debate, but it is good for such a legacy game to be able to flex its popularity and passionate fan base once in a while. That is a sign of a healthy community that breeds positive competition and pushes developers and publishers to come out with the best content.