Over the years, subathons and live-streaming marathons have grown into a kind of phenomenon among Twitch streamers, be they established stars or upcoming names looking for that one moment or stream that could take them to the next level. To that degree, viewers witness various types of such lengthy live broadcasting exercises every year, with summertime proving especially popular.
With that in mind, Streams Charts has combed through its database to compile a chart of the most watched subathons, or marathons, over the past few months. As expected, there are familiar names who have been at the top of the game and lesser-known online personalities who have used this exercise to upgrade their channels and move that much closer to the big time.
Top summer marathons and subathons (May to mid-August)
At the top is none other than Kai Cenat, who we will see multiple times on this list for his efforts in introducing the Dark Souls universe to a wider audience. Interestingly, when he decided to do an Elden Ring marathon, nobody expected that it would become such a big hit, but at the end of around a week of playing, which amounted to around 167 hours of gameplay, he hit an incredible 15.6M Hours Watched. It helped bring the focus back on a game that many consider the best ever while sending it to the top of the Twitch games charts for an extended period, all the while using it as a primer for an upcoming DLC, more of which will be discussed below.
The American also takes the second spot thanks to his next marathon involving Elden Ring, this time for its recently-released expansion pack, Shadow of the Erdtree. His five-day broadcast of this DLC's playthrough, which saw Kai Cenat die 1070 times over 99 hours, even required him to call on the assistance of a therapist. His friends did so as the 22-year-old started getting frustrated at his inability to kill Radahn, beating who took around half of his entire marathon time. Nevertheless, he managed 8.7M HW across this marathon, once again helping Elden Ring emerge as the most watched and popular game on Twitch, even surpassing the usual topper Just Chatting by both metrics for a specific period.
Loud Coringa, who had a seven-day challenge of his own that brought him 3.55M HW, rounds off the podium. The second-most followed Portuguese-speaking broadcaster on Twitch even jumped to the top of the platform's charts, with one live stream ending atop his all-time watch time ranking. It also made him the most-watched Just Chatting creator during that time, aided by the unique content he put out that included him and his friends playing games and hanging out, much to the amusement of his audience.
Pauleta_Twitch adds some more diversity to the top five thanks to the 2.3 HW he achieved during an almost-month-long subathon across July. He played a variety of games, including Chained Together, EA Sports FC 24, and Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut, although he mostly stuck to the IRL genre. This exercise also put the internet personality among France's five most-watched influencers in July and helped him earn 13,094 subscriptions.
We come back to Kai Cenat for one last time, as his Elden Ring exploits encouraged him to attempt a Bloodborne marathon. However, he did not go through the entire completionists process, instead just concentrating on using exploits to kill the bosses and finishing in around 31 hours, which notched 2.12M HW. The megastar did court controversy among hardcore fans of the community for not doing enough to show off the positives of the game during this extended play session and for labeling himself as a public spokesperson for any potential future remaster.
We stick with FromSoftware's legendary game, this time in the form of Mizkif's marathon, which accrued 1.99M HW over three days. He jumped on the game's bandwagon when it was atop the Twitch charts thanks to Kai Cenat's efforts and after three days (96 hours) and 1,387 deaths, finally beat the game by beating the game's final boss, Elden Beast.
The last entry connected to Elden Ring is Jynxzi, whose own marathon foo the game did 1.76M HW. However, it must be noted that he hilariously cut short this effort after around 49 hours, noting to his viewers that 'Elden Ring has broken me as a man.' Kai Cenat was undoubtedly pleased with this development, responding to his good friend's inability to finish the legendary RPG by saying 'I own you.'
Next comes Ironmouse, who held a lengthy subathon that lasted 21 days and aimed to help her reach two million subscribers. The entire exercise eventually hit 1.47M HW, helping one of the world's most popular VTubers reach her goal and earn 5,343 subs. Interestingly, she also held a mini Elden Ring marathon within the time, with these playthroughs hitting 910K HW over five days.
ItsAsh_btw might only be ninth on this leaderboard, but her 272-day subathon, which began on October 18 to celebrate her third anniversary on Twitch and ended in July, hit an incredible 1.13M HW between May 1 to July 17. She was online almost daily, which helped the American gain 2,067 subscribers and gave her the most watched and popular live broadcasts on her channel.
AussieAntics, whose esports subathon covering the FNCS and Cash Cups between July 21 and 31 registered 1.02M HW, is in tenth. The Fortnite streamer for Dignitas is a former esports pro in the game who is one of the five Australians to enjoy over a million followers on Twitch and remains one of the most watched creators on the game. He was able to garner 5,706 subs thanks to this exercise and ended as the second-most watched broadcaster for the builder-shooter during this period.
