Apex Legends & Fortnite Twitch viewership takes major hit as Fall Guys surges
Fall Guys has seen a massive bump in popularity since going free to play, so much so that it appears to have damaged rival battle royales Apex Legends and Fortnite’s popularity on Twitch.
For a few glorious months after its launch in 2020, Fall Guys was the hottest property in gaming. Millions of players took pleasure in dragging their clumsy jellybeans through outrageous levels in an attempt to be the last bean standing.
Despite being the most-downloaded PS Plus game of all time, Fall Guys failed to find the staying power that other battle royales like Warzone enjoyed. However, after going free-to-play and releasing on Switch and Xbox, the game saw its player base grow to over 20 million.
The resurgence of Fall Guys appears to have impacted its competitors too, with both Apex Legends and Fortnite taking a significant hit in Twitch viewership.
Epic GamesAfter going free-to-play in June, the latest Twitch figures show just how big a comeback Fall Guys has made. At the time of writing in July 2022, Fall Guys is the sixth most-viewed game on the platform with an average of 88,100 viewers.
This is a massive 22% increase from the previous week, placing Mediatonic’s quirky title alongside heavy hitters like Counter-Strike: GO and Escape from Tarkov.
What’s even more interesting is the effect that Fall Guys’ success has had on its rivals. Fortnite and Apex Legends have slipped behind Fall Guys with drops of 7.4% and 12.7% respectively, with Apex barely clinging on to a spot in the top 10.
Call of Duty: Warzone has also taken a significant dip, losing 16.2% of its Twitch audience in the last week.
Of course, it’s tough to tell if the drops seen by rival battle royales were directly caused by people tuning in to Fall Guys instead, but it’s definitely interesting to see such a drastic change in figures just after the game went F2P.
We’ll have to wait and see if Fall Guys can keep players and viewers on board this time around, but with Apex Legends Season 14 and Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 4 coming soon, Mediatonic has their work cut out for them.
In the meantime, check out the leaked Dragon Ball Z crossover in Fortnite, as well as the most popular character in Apex Legends Season 13.
Image credits: Mediatonic / Epic Games / Twitch Tracker