Squadrons only has a couple hundred concurrent viewers right now, and I wouldn't expect to see that needle move much.īack 4 Blood: Even if this spiritual Left 4 Dead 2 sequel is excellent (I really hope it is), I'll be surprised if it tops the Twitch charts for long. The 5v5 dogfights also have the wrong kind of win condition: Reaching a certain kill count doesn't seem to be what grabs viewers. We also observed a preference for seeing people, not vehicles like spaceships. Star Wars Squadrons: Like Everspace 2, Squadrons may be a good game, but Twitch has a clear preference for environments with atmospheres. Predicting this year's Twitch hit: Chivalry 2 (CS:GO and Valorant offer a sort of mix, with multiple objective-based rounds that add up to a final team score.) This is in contrast to older deathmatch games, where winners were determined by a ranking based on kill count, and other games where players accrue points over time. Either you're the last team standing in a battle royale game, or you're not. Where applicable, victory results from a clear binary condition, and ties are impossible.They're most commonly played with a mouse and keyboard, with some exceptions, such as Rocket League (which is turning out to be quite an exceptional game).Games in which we're looking at the back of a spaceship, car, truck, tank, or warship are not often found among the top Twitch games. Rocket League is very popular, and World of Warships is somewhat popular, but otherwise there's a clear preference for human or human-like player characters.Everspace 2, which just released in early access, is nowhere near the top of the charts.

I'll also add that many of these maps contain green grass.

Several of these games take place on large, primarily outdoor maps.

Building is important to three of the top games: Rust, Minecraft, and Fortnite.

However, 10 out of the 22 games I listed heavily feature guns.

There doesn't seem to be any preference for fantasy, science fiction, or modern day settings.

Most of them are backed by big publishers.

So, what else seems to be the case about games that are popular on Twitch? Here are a few observations: The preference for multiplayer games on Twitch makes obvious sense (they're already shared experiences, so streaming them is less of a leap than it is with singleplayer games), and it isn't all that useful to point out. (I ignored games that were only near the top because one person with a huge audience was streaming them.) There are also games that have only recently settled into lower numbers, such as Phasmophobia, which was streamed heavily in 2020. Recently, I saw Sea of Thieves sitting up near Rocket League, but it was primarily because xQc was streaming it, so it matters who's playing. Other games, such as Genshin Impact, Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War, Rainbow Six Siege, and Dead by Daylight, move in and out of the top concurrent viewers list. That's not a comprehensive list of Twitch staples, but it's a good sampling.

Virtual slot machines and other gambling.Rust (a streamer server is popular right now).