Bungie Inc., developers of the Destiny franchise, recently went live on Twitch to showcase a gameplay preview for their upcoming The Final Shape expansion. The release will be the eighth major content expansion for the title, marking 7 years of content expansions for Destiny 2. Fans eagerly tuned into the gameplay preview broadcast, and it became one of Bungie’s most popular streams ever.
The Bungie Twitch channel went live on April 9 to showcase the upcoming expansion’s gameplay, and over 150K Peak Viewers were recorded for the stream.
112.5K Hours Watched were recorded by the broadcast in only over an hour, and 96.5K Average Viewers were observed throughout. The broadcast was also mirrored to the Destiny 2 YouTube channel, where another 54.7K Peak Viewers were recorded.
These broadcasts, alongside other developer streams revolving around Destiny 2, have been the game’s most popular content on live-streaming services of the year. These broadcasts receive far more viewership than any other content creator’s gameplay, giving a sense of Destiny 2’s full potential in live streaming.
Despite the overwhelming popularity of this broadcast, it was only Bungie’s fifth-most-popular broadcast recorded on their Twitch channel. After many years of expansions and gameplay, the hype of this eighth expansion was not able to match up to some of Bungie’s other broadcasts.
The recent The Final Shape broadcast fell slightly short of the peak viewership recorded by 2021’s Destiny 2 Showcase. The Destiny 2 Showcase is a yearly live–stream held by Destiny 2’s development team to communicate to the community what is coming, and what is planned for the title.
The 2022 Showcase was Bungie’s most popular broadcast overall, receiving 339.5K Peak Viewers. The 2022 edition covered the Lightfall expansion, various quality-of-life updates for players, and a new reputation system for the game to reward players. The Lightfall expansion was Destiny 2’s most popular endeavor into expanded content. The expansion was released at the end of February in 2023, and March 2023 was Destiny 2’s most popular month ever on Twitch.
Even Destiny 2’s reveal in 2020 was unable to match up to the hype generated by the Lightfall expansion. Bungie’s stream revealing Destiny 2 received 180K Peak Viewers, becoming their most popular broadcast at the time. It reigned as the channel’s most popular broadcast for over two years before Lightfall was highlighted during their yearly showcase.
Compared to other game companies and developers, Bungie did fall slightly behind. Their recent The Final Stage stream was the fifth-most-popular broadcast by a games company this year, but it fell significantly behind the other top four broadcasts.
Genshin Impact’s official Japanese channel received 193.9K Peak Viewers for the preview broadcast of their V4.5 update, and the Japanese Monster Strike channel received 204K PV for their broadcast announcing their second collaboration with Jujutsu Kaisen. Both of these broadcasts appealed to Japanese-speaking audiences, and they both overshadowed Bungie’s English-speaking viewership.
Ahead of the pack are Bandai Namco Europe and Brawl Stars. Bandai Namco is the publisher for Elden Ring, which took the world by storm when it was released in 2022. It was one of the most popular game releases of 2022, and fans have been long awaiting its first DLC content. In February, Bandai showcased the first snippets of gameplay for the upcoming Shadow of the Erdtree DLC expansion, and 687.8K Peak Viewers were recorded for the short broadcast.
Brawl Stars was developed by SUPERCELL, creators of Clash of Clans and Clash Royale. The company has plenty of experience developing superstar mobile games, and Brawl Stars is no different. The title is famous around the world, and the official Brawl Stars channel went live only three days after the Elden Ring DLC showcase for their Brawl Talk. Brawl Talk is the developers chance to communicate directly with the community about upcoming changes, and their 2024 talk received over 750K PV. The developers outlined an overhaul of the competitive mode for the game, and fans were obviously excited to tune in.
Bungie’s recent showcase of the upcoming eighth expansion was popular, but ultimately not as popular as other games showcases we have seen so far throughout 2024. The year is still early, and plenty of games developers, publishers, and companies will have plenty of chances to plant their stream at the top of our rankings.
