Across the top 100 games being streamed in April, viewership fell by 11%: A significant drop of 178M hours watched compared to March. Big RPG hits like Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth lost viewership as players completed the games’ linear stories, while the breakout hit Supermarket Simulator cooled off – although it will likely pick up traction again when the full game releases later this year.
In terms of new releases for April, two games just snuck in before the end of the month with massive viewerships on live-streaming platforms. The first of these was Manor Lords, the highly-anticipated medieval RTS city builder which had over three million wishlists on Steam. Manor Lords brought in 6.4M hours watched, despite only fully releasing on the 26th of April. The second big release, action-adventure game Stellar Blade, had an eerily similar performance to Manor Lords, also releasing on the 26th and with just 60K more hours watched. The PS5 exclusive is stunning players with its graphics and in-depth, flowing combat.
Meanwhile, certain older games had a renaissance. The largest among these by far was the Fallout franchise, with Fallout 4, Fallout 76 and Fallout: New Vegas all seeing surges in viewership. Fallout 4 had the best live-streaming performance amongst these titles, reaching the 58th spot with 4.9M hours watched. Of course the renewed interest in Fallout games came from the new Fallout TV series on Amazon which premiered on the 10th of April.
Both Old and New Open-World Survival Games Dominate April’s Top Games
Speaking of older games having a resurgence, Rust broke back into the top 10 games for this month with a massive 36M hours watched. As usual for Rust, this renewed interest followed an update and subsequent server wipe which reset the game so that new factions could be developed. This was still a monumental jump even by server-wipe standards, increasing 246% from March’s viewership.
A new entrant into the open-world survival genre also caused a stir. Once Human, a post-apocalyptic MMO, opened its latest beta testing period on the 4th of April to 150,000 players. The game was an instant success on live-streaming platforms, bringing in 2.3M hours watched purely through beta access. When Once Human fully releases in Q3, it’s sure to make a splash online.
Action RPGs Spring Back to Life on Live Streaming
Another early access game which has found phenomenal success is No Rest for the Wicked, a new action RPG from Moon Studio – the developer behind the critically acclaimed Ori and the Blind Forest. Moon Studio’s excellence in crafting engaging visuals is on full display once again, pulling in players to No Rest for the Wicked and generating 7.2M hours watched on streaming platforms. A full release date isn’t known yet, but may be a while away as early access only released on the 18th of April.
Meanwhile a classic action RPG reared its head again: Path of Exile. Despite Diablo 4’s hype last year, Path of Exile has proven its staying power by veering away from the Diablo series’ standards. In April, Path of Exile jumped up 19 spots with a total of 15M hours watched. Developers Grinding Gear Games are striving to keep up with demand for the series, planning to release Path of Exile 2 later this year.
Of course, these are just a few of the highlights from April. Here are the top 20 games, and their rank changes from March:
| Game | Rank | Hours Watched Apr | Hours Watched Mar | % Change | Rank Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grand Theft Auto V | 1 | 161,144,246 | 182,072,997 | -11.5% | 0 |
| League of Legends | 2 | 139,857,508 | 166,161,516 | -15.8% | 0 |
| VALORANT | 3 | 108,836,789 | 125,566,241 | -13.3% | ▲ 1 |
| Counter-Strike | 4 | 91,538,440 | 128,931,696 | -29.0% | ▼ 1 |
| Dota 2 | 5 | 59,096,526 | 59,694,035 | -1.0% | ▲ 1 |
| Fortnite | 6 | 57,136,653 | 74,089,869 | -22.9% | ▼ 1 |
| Call of Duty: Warzone | 7 | 48,125,698 | 42,257,291 | 13.9% | ▲ 2 |
| Garena Free Fire | 8 | 40,954,942 | 43,973,715 | -6.9% | 0 |
| Rust | 9 | 36,080,635 | 10,429,622 | 245.9% | ▲ 26 |
| Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | 10 | 34,720,825 | 57,680,057 | -39.8% | ▼ 3 |
| Apex Legends | 11 | 29,698,910 | 41,088,957 | -27.7% | ▼ 1 |
| Teamfight Tactics | 12 | 29,666,877 | 22,802,530 | 30.1% | ▲ 7 |
| Minecraft | 13 | 28,247,867 | 38,176,694 | -26.0% | ▼ 2 |
| Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege | 14 | 26,919,851 | 28,051,619 | -4.0% | 0 |
| EA Sports FC 24 | 15 | 26,421,744 | 24,255,692 | 8.9% | ▲ 2 |
| PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS | 16 | 25,235,929 | 26,243,556 | -3.8% | ▼ 1 |
| Overwatch 2 | 17 | 23,965,516 | 29,973,903 | -20.0% | ▼ 4 |
| World of Warcraft | 18 | 22,110,296 | 24,695,827 | -10.5% | ▼ 2 |
| PUBG Mobile | 19 | 20,088,385 | 30,332,150 | -33.8% | ▼ 7 |
| Dead by Daylight | 20 | 19,810,438 | 24,196,954 | -18.1% | ▼ 2 |
