On December 26, Escape from Tarkov received its Patch 0.16.0.0 update, bringing a wipe and a brand-new festive event for the game. The title is well-known for its year-end updates which revitalise the game’s viewership in the livestreaming industry.
New Year updates are accompanied with a Twitch Drops campaign, which began on December 30 and will continue until January 7. This campaign has brought massive viewership back to the game, and helped many medium-sized streamers to achieve new viewership records.
Since the new update, Escape from Tarkov has been the most-watched game on the entire Twitch platform. The game still falls short of the most popular category, Just Chatting, but it outperformed other triple-AAA performers in livestreaming viewership, such as GTA V, Fortnite, and League of Legends.
As it stands, Escape from Tarkov broadcasts have generated almost 20.9M Hours Watched since its newest release; for comparison, this is more viewership than the game received for the months of October and November last year, combined.
Metrics such as Average Viewers and Viewers per Channel showed heights not seen since last year’s seasonal event for the game. Although this year’s event has been a massive success and brought hundreds of thousands of viewers to the title on Twitch, viewership is lower than previous years.
Last year’s seasonal event received just shy of 60M Hours Watched, something this year’s event is highly unlikely to replicate. In terms of Peak Viewers, this year’s event also seems unlikely to match the heights of the previous year. Although Tarkov’s Winter events have statistically been some of the most-watched Twitch Drops campaigns, the game developers may have to bring some innovations next year to keep fans interested.
While the integration of Twitch Drops are the driving force behind the viewership for these Tarkov events, none of it would be possible without the streamers covering this significant event. Streams Charts has collated the most popular creators of the event so far, which includes both familiar names to Tarkov fans, and some newer faces.
Many of the top-ranking streamers in this list are well-known to Escape from Tarkov fans. LVNDMARK, SheefGG, and WillerZ appeared highly in our rankings of last year’s top streamers too, and these leading creators continued their domination of Tarkov viewership during these events. Last year, Paul “Pestily” Licari headed the rankings with 139K PV, but the Australian creator was not able to reach the six-figure-viewer count again so far this year.
This year, more Japanese streamers appeared highly in our ranking. Last year’s rankings were entirely dominated by English-speaking streamers, but Tarkov has appeared to make an effort to diversify the audience of this event more by bringing in international creators. Yuta “Stylishnoob4” Seki was the most popular Japanese creator with 25K Peak Viewers, but other creators from the land of the rising sun could continue to draw high viewership towards the tail-end of the Twitch Drops campaign.
Escape from Tarkov’s seasonal event for the year is not yet over. The event will end on January 7, meaning one more weekend of viewership could see many streamers enjoy record-breaking viewership for their channels as more potential viewers are free to tune in. Streams Charts will continue to track viewership data for Escape from Tarkov’s event in our database.
