LEGENDUS, a special type of event conducted by the popular Japanese streamer Shaka, was held on May 19 as an online affair. It ended as one of the most popular Street Fighter competitions ever thanks to the star line-up of participants and the attraction that is its creator.
This event featured prominent fighting game players like Haitani, Kazunoko, Mago, Shuuto, and Naruo, apart from superstar VTubers like Kuzuha and Kanae. It basically paired these content creators, more or less novices at the legendary game, with its more established pros, forming eight such master-student combines.
Each pair would choose one character from Street Fighter 6, which they would use to battle the other competitors. Masters would do battle amongst themselves while their pupils would also face off, all in a round-robin Group Stage where the team with the maximum points would select their first-round opponents in the Finals.
With so much going on and numerous top influencers and pros in action, LEGENDUS ended with 306.7K Peak Viewers. This was a record for the discipline, finishing in third among its most popular events of all time, behind the EVO 2023 Street Fighter 6 and the Capcom Cup X from earlier this year.
It also notched 1.9M Hours Watched and 261.5K Average Viewers over seven hours of airtime. That put it among the six most-watched competitions ever in Street Fighter on a list led by the Street Fighter League Pro-JP 2023. It also became the most popular competition in the game when looking at non-esports entries.
The eight characters chosen by the teams were:
- Guile
- Marisa
- Luke
- Zangief
- Chun-Li
- Jamie
- Ryu
- Camm
At the end of the day, it was Team Guile, consisting of Higuchi and Donpisha, who beat Team Luke (Bonchan and Kuzuha) 2:0 in the Grand Final. The duo had also topped the Group Stage with 25 points, choosing to face Team Ryu in the Quarterfinals, a clash they easily won 2:0.
Twitch star and well-known Japanese Street Fighter 6 creator Shinjisan, who finished fourth as part of Team Zangief, was awarded the MVP gong. With the commentary team including renowned personalities from the country's fighting game scene like Aru, Hameko, and Kokujin, spectator interest was also pretty high.
Of course, the Japanese audience's love for the discipline should not be understated, for the game enjoys a massive following in the Land of the Rising Sun. That Street Fighter 6 is still relatively new to the fold, having been released last year, added to the hype around this exhibition event, helping it attract such a high number of concurrent viewers.
Moreover, it continued the good work that recent competitions in the discipline have been seeing, with the Capcom Cup X — with a record-setting prize pool of $1,700,000 — emerging as an undoubted success. It finished as the most watched and popular event in the Capcom Cup series and the third-most-watched competition of all time in the discipline.
It also reinforced Shaka's reputation as Japan's pre-eminent force when it comes to Twitch streaming, with his following playing a major role in attracting thousands of viewers. It also helped him enter the top ten most popular channels list on Twitch for the past week, an accolade he is all too familiar with.
The live broadcast of this tournament on his personal channel also ended as one of his most successful ever, finishing seventh when it comes to peak concurrent viewership. As he is mainly known for his amazing Grand Theft Auto V playthroughs, it is one of only three streams not involving Rockstar Games’ legendary title in this top ten list, with the others being Rust and ARK: Survival Evolve.
That such a friendly streamer tournament could make it one of the discipline's most popular ever also suggests that it is in safe hands as long as co-casting and community interest from strongholds like Japan remain robust. It also benefitted from that fact by breaking into the ten most popular games leaderboard for the last seven days, doing better than prominent names like Valorant, EA Sports FC 24, and Rocket League.
It is a long season for Street Fighter 6, with events like the Esports World Cup 2024 and DreamHack Dallas 2024 still to come. With the recent renaissance in the game's viewership figures showing no signs of abating, there could be more milestones for fans to celebrate, led by the active interest taken by the community's top content creators.
