A new report by StreamElements sheds light on the popularity of battle royale giant Apex Legends. Despite having a phenomenal launch period, viewership on the premier streaming website Twitch has seen a drastic reduction which is worrying for EA’s Free-to-Play online shooter.
Apex Legends is the breakout hit so far into 2019. Launched with little fanfare after a very short promotion period, the competitive multiplayer shooter by Respawn landed like a bomb. It pretty much immediately catapulted itself on the top charts of most-played games and most-watched ones. It famously overtook the alpha dog of the battle royale genre Fortnite, which quickly led to many believe the end for Fortnite to have come with Apex Legends.
And for a while, it certainly looked promising for the game. Very much so indeed. It took Apex Legends only one month to amass a huge milestone of over 50 Million players. That’s a lot faster than even Fortnite managed. But the gaming industry is a harsh and brutal one, especially with regards to multiplayer games. Longevity is very important and it looks like Apex Legends has failed to maintain the initial enthusiasm.
VGR reports on the newest industry report by StreamElements and it gives valuable insight about the health of Apex Legends and the trend it is following. This past March the shooter’s popularity on Twitch drastically decreased below its direct competitor Fortnite’s view counts. Mind you, Apex Legends is far from being abandoned with over 10 Millions hours watched but it’s a far cry from its peak figure only a month prior.
There’s no question developer Respawn is going to enhance and improve their title with new content updates but it remains to be seen to what extent those will affect the game’s popularity. Interestingly, Fortnite is sitting at very stable viewing hours.
