Following a record-breaking March, Twitch saw a decline across all key streamer and viewer activity metrics in April, an unsurprising trend. Similar patterns have emerged over the past two years, with April typically acting as a transitional month between the highly active March and the major streamer events and esports tournaments that usually take place in May and June.
The sharpest drop of 8% was recorded in total Hours Watched (HW), which fell to 1.538 billion. In addition to lower overall activity from both streamers and viewers, it's also worth noting that April is one day shorter than March, which naturally contributed to the decline in total watch time.
Notably, while the remaining metrics also declined by up to 5%, the drops were far from dramatic. In fact, they were milder than those recorded during the same period last year.
April was less rich in major game releases, with no new titles making it into the Twitch top-10 categories. However, familiar favorites made a strong return. With the revival of its esports scene, League of Legends surpassed Grand Theft Auto V and reclaimed its position as the leading game on Twitch.
Minor changes were also seen in the second half of the rankings; Fortnite and Minecraft climbed up by one or two spots, while Call of Duty: Warzone saw the biggest jump. Following the update that reintroduced the classic, fan-favorite map Verdansk, some top content creators returned to the game, helping it climb six positions back into the top 10.
From the perspective of individual channel performance, the top-10 rankings in April were largely predictable, with most of the leaders from the previous month maintaining their positions. For the second month in a row, Marc “Caedrel” Lamont remains at the top, solidifying his position as one of the leading esports co-casters at the moment. He is the only one who surpassed the 10 million HW mark this month.
A special mention goes to Victor "loud_coringa" Augusto, who secured second place. He hosted a seven-day streaming marathon, which contributed more than half of his total viewership.
When it comes to viral content, Kai Cenat once again proved he’s the undisputed king of the platform, and he doesn’t need to stream as frequently as others to hold that title. His semi-IRL April Fools’ Day stream peaked at over 238,000 concurrent viewers.
Notably, April’s peak viewership chart featured an unusually high number of organizational channels. ESLCS claimed third place with 211,000 peak viewers during the IEM Melbourne final. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s official channel landed in seventh with its highly anticipated Switch 2 presentation, and Bethesda took ninth place with the surprise announcement of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Remastered.
Emily "Emiru" Schunk from the content group One True King continues to reign supreme among female streamers, maintaining an impressive average of 18,000 concurrent viewers, a figure that puts her well ahead of any other female creator on the platform.
In total, five women surpassed the 10,000 average viewers mark in April. The top 10 also featured a strong showing from the VTuber community, with three virtual creators making the list. Rachell "Valkyrae" Hofstetter rounded out the top 10, steadily reclaiming her place among the platform's elite.
