Inside the Horror Gaming Creator Landscape
The recent launch of Resident Evil Requiem generated undeniable excitement — record sales, streaming numbers, and a long-awaited return for one of gaming's most beloved franchises. We take a closer look at how it all came together: the momentum that built before launch, the impact it made on release, and what it tells us about one of horror gaming's most enduring fandoms.
We then deep-dive into the broader horror gaming creator ecosystem in the last year across Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok. We explore story-driven franchises like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, to social co-op "friendslop" hits like R.E.P.O., to giants like Dead by Daylight. Here's what we found:
Key Findings
- Requiem is the #1 game launch on Twitch in both 2026 and 2025 — across all genres. Peaking at 619K concurrent viewers on Twitch, Requiem was fueled by an active community that never stopped playing Resident Evil games even between releases.
- Twitch is horror's home base. The platform generated 43.2M horror viewer hours in the last year — but horror's viral potential on YouTube Shorts (13B+ views) and TikTok, paired with the narrative deep-dives and guides thriving on YouTube VODs, means every format has a role to play.
- Horror is a viewership magnet for bigger creators. Fans love watching big personalities get scared when live, 60% of "mega-sized" Twitch creators see a viewership boost from horror. Small and mid-sized creators are the genre's backbone who specialize and drive the bulk of viewer and stream hours.
- Horror is a variety genre, but specializing can pay off (especially on YouTube). Specialists make up just 17% of horror creators but drive 32% of viewer hours on Twitch. YouTube also rewards specialization (more than on Twitch), with many top creators making their name by committing fully to horror, rather than treating it as a dip-in genre.
- Horror fans are 9x more likely to play a dating sim. Horror fans crave storytelling, lore, and narrative. Horror creators over-index on dating sims (9×), point-and-click adventures (6×), and visual novels (5×), signaling an audience that wants rich characters and worlds, not just jump scares.
- Geography matters for horror. While NA and EU dominate overall viewership, Japan and Argentina emerge as standout horror markets with outsized horror engagement relative to their size.
Resident Evil Requiem's Twitch Takeover
Requiem stands as the #1 game launch on Twitch — not just in 2026, but across all of 2025 too
Peaking at over 619K concurrent viewers (CCV) on its release, Requiem shattered the 600K CCV barrier on Twitch, surpassing Kingdom Come: Deliverance II (478K CCV), Monster Hunter Wilds (408K), and the launch day of giants like Battlefield 6 (588K) and Arc Raiders (375K).
Requiem’s Rise to the Top Began Before It Even Dropped
Starting in October 2025, the legacy Resident Evil catalog never dipped below 50K daily viewer hours and maintained 3K+ creators streaming it every day. In the days leading up to Requiem's launch, the Resident Evil back catalog was even outperforming Dead by Daylight — one of Twitch's biggest horror mainstays — generating over 400K daily viewer hours before Requiem even dropped.
For a lineup of older titles, this kind of sustained engagement for Resident Evil is extraordinary — driven by a dedicated community, active modding scenes, and an endless appetite for challenge runs.
Remarkably, Requiem's massive launch still couldn't top Resident Evil Village's 2021 debut on Twitch, underscoring just how massive the franchise has been for years (though Requiem did outpace Resident Evil 4 and rivals like Silent Hill and Dead Space).
Resident Evil's Persistent Dominance in the Horror Creator Ecosystem
Over the past year, the Resident Evil franchise generated more than 41.9 million viewer hours on Twitch — accounting for nearly 10% of all horror viewer hours on the platform (and that's not even including Requiem content yet). Both Resident Evil 2 and 4 made it in the top 10 horror games on Twitch. This is a remarkable achievement for a franchise whose last mainline release was in 2021, with the most recent entry being the Resident Evil 4 remake in 2023.
When excluding multiplayer and party-style horror titles (such as Dead by Daylight and R.E.P.O.), Resident Evil accounts for roughly 30% of total horror viewer hours on Twitch.
Resident Evil Succeeds Across Content Forms
Resident Evil's cultural footprint extends well beyond live streaming. Across Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok, a Resident Evil game ranked in the top 10 horror games regardless of platform or content type.
When measured by post volume, Resident Evil broke into the Top 3 horror franchises on both YouTube VODs (long-form) and TikTok — demonstrating its versatility as a content engine.
The franchise thrives equally in long-form formats (guides, lore deep-dives, full playthroughs) and short-form content (cosplay, memes, fan edits), a testament to the depth and passion of its fanbase.
Lessons From Requiem's Massive Launch
What makes Requiem's launch so compelling isn't just the peak launch day stats, it's the story behind them. A franchise with no new release since 2021 maintained top-10 horror status across every major platform for an entire year. That kind of retention is rare in gaming, and it speaks to a community that doesn't just play Resident Evil — they live in it. With fans flocking back to older Resident Evil titles in the two months before launch, Requiem was able to arrive with explosive momentum.
That sustained fan devotion is exactly what propelled Requiem to the #1 spot on Twitch on launch day — briefly surpassing even the "Just Chatting" category — making it one of the biggest game debuts across 2025 and 2026 in terms of concurrent viewers.
Understanding the Horror Creator Ecosystem
Requiem's dominance didn't happen in a vacuum. It's part of a horror creator ecosystem that is one of gaming's most passionate communities. We analyzed horror gaming content across Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok in the year leading up to Requiem's launch, and here's what we found.
Where does horror content live?
Horror content thrives on every major platform, but Twitch wins by far. The genre pulled 43.2M viewer hours in the last year with over 2.5M creators streaming at least one piece of horror content. YouTube long-form follows with 501K creators.
Although YouTube Shorts has the fewest horror creators (221K), its superpower is its viral potential: jump scares, clippable reacts, and chaos moments fuel massive short-form reach, with over 13B views on YouTube Shorts.
Our past research confirms that horror performs especially well in short-form, with shorter VOD times coinciding with better viewership. Still, while Shorts delivers viral spikes, the most reliable volume of horror content and creators lives on Twitch.
Horror Game Preferences Split Sharply by Platform
The top 10 horror games on Twitch reveal a genre defined by two forces: beloved single-player mega-franchises and social multiplayer experiences.
Dead by Daylight is the runaway leader — not just on Twitch but across TikTok, YouTube VODs, and Shorts, demonstrating its cross-platform mainstream appeal.
Co-op, "friend-slop" and multiplayer titles (R.E.P.O., Phasmophobia, Lethal Company, The Outlast Trials) reinforce that horror streaming is also an overtly social experience. But the presence of Silent Hill and Resident Evil in the top 10 speaks to the enduring power of these narrative-driven, lore-rich worlds. Subnautica at #10 shows that horror-adjacent titles pull horror audiences too — genre boundaries are blurry.
YouTube VOD/Long-Form — Top Horror Games Feb 2025—Feb 2026:
- Most views: Choo-Choo Charles (1.3B views, driven by viral outliers /top creators playing it/appeal to children), Dead by Daylight (842M views), R.E.P.O. (683M views)
- Most content: Dead by Daylight (567K videos), R.E.P.O. (206K videos), Resident Evil 4 (154K videos) — reflecting the value of guides, playthroughs, and lore deep-dives that don't translate as well to short-form
YouTube Shorts — Top Horror Games Feb 2025—Feb 2026:
- Most views: Poppy Playtime (4.1B views), Five Nights at Freddy's (1.7B views), Gorilla Tag (1.2B views). These games all skew towards younger audiences and thrive in short-form format with views in the billions.
- Most content: Gorilla Tag (187K videos), Dead by Daylight (149K videos), R.E.P.O. (132K videos)
TikTok — Top Horror Games Feb 2025—Feb 2026:
- Dead by Daylight, Resident Evil, and Five Nights at Freddy's lead the pack in terms of content volume on TikTok
- FNAF tops views thanks to TikTok's Gen-Z demographic, with Silent Hill and Resident Evil rounding out the top 3, fueled by fandom expression on the platform (think cosplay, character fan edits, and more)
What creator size dominates horror?
Horror viewership on Twitch is shaped by a tension between volume and reach.
- Nano creators drive the most total viewer hours (172M) because there are so many of them. Horror also makes up a disproportionately large share of their content — roughly 6% of nano viewer hours come from horror, nearly double the platform average of 3%.
- Mid and large creators together drive more horror viewer hours (271M) than nano creators alone, thanks to their balance of volume and individual reach. On average, micro, mid, and large creators also dedicate the most average stream hours per creator to horror, making them the genre's workhorse tiers.
- Roughly 25% of mega creators have played at least one horror game in the past year — 2x more likely than other creator tiers — and while they sample widely (a median of 5 horror games a year versus just 1 for nano creators), they contribute fewer total stream and viewer hours, suggesting breadth over commitment.
When does horror boost viewership?
Horror Benefits Larger Creator Viewership the Most
Relative to other streamed genres, mega creators see the most reliable ACV boost when streaming horror. 60% of mega creators get a boost when streaming horror relative to other genres (with this median boost being 2.1%). The appeal is intuitive — audiences love watching big personalities get scared live on stream. Mid and micro creators typically take a 4–6% ACV hit when switching to horror. Nano creators' viewership doesn't move much (typically because they only have a few viewers at a time).
Horror specialization depends on creator size and platform
- Specialist Creator: stream >70% horror games
- Explorer Creator: stream 30-70% horror games
- Variety Creator: stream <30% horror games
Every mega creator on Twitch who streams horror is a variety streamer. On YouTube, however, the top 5 mega horror creators span all content types — specialists, explorers, and variety alike.
This suggests that specializing in horror may pay off differently depending on the platform: on YouTube, a creator can build a massive audience as a horror specialist, while on Twitch, horror appears to be a genre that even the biggest creators only dip into as part of a broader mix of content.
Smaller creators are more likely to specialize in horror.
Horror Is a Variety Genre, But Specialists Are Rewarded
Horror is not a specialist genre in the way that other genres are (like FPS, sports/racing, fighting games):
- 55% of horror creators are variety streamers (<30% horror content)
- 29% are explorers
- ~17% (~55K creators) are specialists (70%+ horror content)
- Several specialists commit to only a single game (mostly Dead by Daylight)
Horror viewership is largely driven by variety streamers, but specialists punch far above their weight. Despite making up just 17% of horror creators, they account for 32% of total viewer hours and drive the strongest ACV lifts across every size tier — making them high-value targets for horror game marketing.
What else are horror creators playing?
What do horror creators play when they're not playing horror? To find out, we looked at Twitch creators who had horror as their primary genre and logged at least 25 hours of horror content in the past year.
Top 5 Secondary Genres Among Horror Creators on Twitch (by Number of Creators)
- Adventure (63K creators, 3.9M stream hours)
- Action adventure (62K creators, 3.6M stream hours)
- Survival (62K creators, 8.3M stream hours)
- Strategy (59K creators, 7.1M stream hours)
- Puzzle (5K, 1.9M stream hours)
Where horror creators dramatically over-index vs. the average Twitch streamer:
- Dating sims: ~9× more likely to play
- Point-and-click adventures: ~6× more likely
- Visual novels: ~5× more likely
Importantly, this trend extends beyond a few crossover titles — it could explain the cult followings behind games like Doki Doki Literature Club!, Danganronpa, Corpse Party, and Slay the Princess, which blend horror with these other genres. Even after excluding games tagged as both horror and point-and-click (or visual novel), the effect holds true. This suggests something key about the horror demographic: these are audiences and creators who value narrative, lore, storytelling, and world-building, not just jump scares. They skew toward niche, story-driven genres, pointing to a community more open to unconventional gaming experiences than the Twitch mainstream.
Compared to the average Twitch streamer, horror creators are the least likely to play sports or auto-battler/tower defense games, suggesting minimal creator and audience overlap between horror and these genres.
Understanding what other genres horror gamers enjoy (and do not enjoy) helps marketers identify target audiences and reveals the gameplay features — such as lore, narrative, and storytelling — that resonate most with them.
Global Market Research: Where the Scares Come From
Other Twitch Market Insights
- Core-English Markets Dominate Horror on Twitch. Across core English-speaking markets — the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia — Twitch creators over-index on horror, with a higher share of streamers playing the genre and dedicating more broadcast hours to it than the global average (roughly 10–30% above average depending on the country).
- LATAM's Horror Scene Is Bigger Than You Think. Brazil ranked in the Top 5 horror countries on Twitch in terms of raw viewer hours and engagement. Argentina also stands out as a horror powerhouse. Argentine creators dedicate 40% more of their streaming time to horror than the global average, and horror accounts for 12.9% of all viewer hours on Argentine streams — compared to roughly 3% platform-wide. That means Argentina generates 4.4x more horror viewer hours relative to the global average. Notable creators like AgustinUnaplay8 (primarily Dead by Daylight streamer) highlight the genre's strength in the region.
YouTube
Top 5 Countries YT VOD (Long-Form): US, Japan, India, UK, Brazil
Other YouTube Market Insights
- Japan has the highest share of horror content creators on YouTube. Nearly a third of Japanese creators create long-form horror content — the highest horror adoption rate of all countries in the dataset. On Shorts, Japan also leads with a creator index of 1.5x (50% more Japanese creators make horror content than the global average). It's a fitting reflection of the country's deep roots in the genre, having produced some of gaming's most beloved horror franchises.
- Pakistan and India as “viral” horror markets on YouTube. Pakistan leads with the highest horror views index (4.7x) and 243M+ Shorts views, despite only 2.6% of its creators making horror content. India tells a similar story: low creator penetration, yet a top-five ranking for total horror viewer hours, suggesting a handful of creators are driving outsized, viral impact.
TERMINOLOGY.
Twitch Creator size tiers (by Average Concurrent Viewers):
- Mega: 10K+ ACV
- Large: 1K–10K ACV
- Mid: 100–1K ACV
- Micro: 25–100 ACV
- Nano: <25 ACV
YouTube Creator size tiers (by Average Views Per VOD):
- Mega: 150K+ AVV
- Large: 50–150K AVV
- Mid: 5–50K AVV
- Small: 1–5K AVV
- Nano: <1K AVV
Cohort Definitions
- Specialist: 70%+ of content is horror
- Explorer: 30-70% of content is horror
- Variety: <30% of content is horror