2020 was unstable in terms of trends on Twitch. Each new release entirely focused the streamers' and audiences' attention. Games were changing so rapidly that we've seen a new leader of the platform every month. Streams Charts decided to figure out which new games in 2020 performed the best on Twitch.
VALORANT has got the title of the most popular newcomer in 2020. Riot Games' new shooter caught viewers' eyes for a couple of months after the release. The game has initially been in the closed beta stage, and people had to watch broadcasts to get access to the game. That's why the broadcasts of launch day gathered 1,7M Peak Viewers.
At first, the game did not have a consistent audience. The developers have changed that with the help of the Ignition Series. Third-party organizers were able to apply for hosting the tournaments within the series, that's when first esports fans were attracted
First Strike is the latest major VALORANT tournament and the first one from Riot Games. Based on the results, you can immediately understand which regions will be major for the game going forward.
The second place in our rating is occupied by Fall Guys — 173M Hours Watched. This battle royale caused such hype on the platform that it entered the top 3 categories in August not only by Hours Watched but also by Peak Viewers — 708K. However, with the revival of Among Us, interest in Fall Guys abruptly subsided, and everyone rushed to play new platform trends.
New FIFA game was released in November 2020 and in just two months reached the third position of our rating with 156M Hours Watched. Peak Viewers reached 473K on October 29. 69% of this number belongs to the FIFA 21 Challenge, where competed such famous footballers as Trent Alexander-Arnold and Giovanni Reyna.
The fourth and fifth places belong to the Call of Duty series. Warzone, the first battle royale game in the series, initially was launched with CoD: Modern Warfare. Thus, the streams of Warzone and MW were not separated. The battle royale gained its own tournaments and audience, so later Warzone became an independent category and collected 83M Hours Watched and 345K Peak Viewers in 2020.
In November, we welcomed a new part of the series — Black Ops Cold War. It reached 82,8M Hours Watched in just three months, and Twitch Rivals Showdown series’ main event with streamers attracted 88K spectators at the peak.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons lacked just 100 thousand Hours Watched to overtake CoD. The new part of the sandbox gained viewers’ attention on Twitch with its cartoonishness and cozy atmosphere. The game was released exclusively on Nintendo Switch, and its streams bypassed such popular categories as CS:GO.
Phasmophobia opens the second part of our top. This is a multiplayer horror, where four players detect paranormal phenomena at the location. Streamer’s reactions to screamers always amuse viewers, so the game has collected 75M Hours Watched.
Genshin Impact is a new RPG. The game attracted gamers with a beautiful game world and characters, but its main feature is cross-platform gameplay as it can be played on PC, consoles, and mobile devices. Since the end of September, the new title from miHoYo has collected 65M Hours Watched.
Cyberpunk 2077 is in ninth place by Hours Watched, while the game stands out in terms of Peak Viewers among all representatives of the top — 1,1 million. Cyberpunk was the most anticipated game of 2020, so its launch was broadcast by 35 thousand simultaneous channels. Viewers were losing interest in broadcasts, but that's because they played the game themselves — 1 million players online on Steam in the first week after launch.
We've prepared a special page that contains the essential Twitch results of 2020. In addition to the overall figures of Twitch 2020 and their comparison with 2019, everybody can sort the results by channels and categories.
Moreover, each streamer can download their channel's infographic for 2020 and immediately share it on social networks.