#Top5OnTwitch for 4/27 - 5/3

Which games are rising on the Twitch charts? Which titles are sliding? We bring you the hard numbers and reaction, every week, in the GAMESIGHT power rankings!

Note: The following rankings are based on a combination of both gross and percentage change to viewership and total streams. As such, dominant and stable titles near the top of the charts will not always, or often, appear. To compare to last week's rankings, click here.

Top 5 Rising

1. Sea Of Thieves

Increase Viewership: 1,575,731 Hours (477.60%)

Increase Total Streams: 6,272 Channels (114.30%)

New content releases are the lifeblood of "live service" titles on Twitch. There's so much competition for attention, if you're not giving your players new events, expansions, or updates to experience, most of your players, streamers, and streaming audiences will move on to something with more novelty.

Such is the case with Sea of Thieves, which sees an enormous bump in both playership and total streamers on the heels of its anniversary update, version 2.0. In addition to myriad tweaks and improvements, the latest release also includes a bevy of new game content, including the first of a series of interconnected narrative adventures called "Tall Tales," and a new combat oriented competitive mode called "Arena." All this combined was enough to bring back players and streamers who played Sea of Thieves in the past, and the 20th largest audience overall in terms of total Twitch hours viewed for the week. It will be interesting to see how long this bump lasts, but, for now, it seems the team behind Sea of Thieves can call the latest update a success.

2. Days Gone

Increase Viewership: 1,941,018 Hours (82.28%)

Increase Total Streams: 9270 Channels (75.85%)

As is visible in the graph above, total peak viewership for the PS4 exclusive Days Gone trended downward over the course of its second week since release. Still, in aggregate it continued to rise, seeing significant increases in both total viewership and total streams over the previous week. While its current trajectory seems to indicate it won't show up on this list again, these are still very impressive numbers for any title, much less a console exclusive.

Over the course of the last week, Days Gone saw the 11th highest total viewership in terms of hours viewed on Twitch, and saw the 6th largest raw increase overall. Single player, story-oriented titles have a limited shelf life on Twitch, and even the most successful tend to drop off after 2-4 weeks. That, of course, doesn't mean they aren't successful. This seems to be a major difference between "live-service" and traditional titles on Twitch; the former is successful based upon long-term sustained play, and thus, a long term sustained presence on Twitch. The latter, meanwhile, peaks right away, selling and streaming in large numbers on and around release day. Days Gone is one of the most watched titles in streaming, at the moment, and while that is unlikely to be the case much longer, it's clear that the title has struck a chord, and this is likely a reflection of strong sales to go along with such strong engagement.

3. Yuppie Psycho

Increase Viewership: 484,649 Hours (1794.34% Raw, 541.24% Daily Average)

Increase Total Streams: 357 Channels (566.66%)

This game presented us with a dilemma: the primary reason it's increase in viewership is so high, as a percentage, was that it had only two days, in the previous week, of availability. In its first full week, including its first weekend, it obviously had ample opportunity to improve on those numbers. However, when taking the titles daily average total viewership from the previous week, and comparing it to the same number for this past week, viewership still increased five-fold, and it's for that reason that the title still finds itself landing in our top five fastest rising titles.

Long term, it's unclear whether this game will continue to grow its Twitch presence. Right now, most of the game's viewership is coming from streamers in the Pacific region, who make up nine of the game's top ten creators, and nearly 450,000 hours of the game's 507,878 hours of viewership game from the top twelve streamers, which means it won't take many of them moving on, at this point, to tank the game's total numbers. If, however, it continues to see growth over the next week, it might have some legs. We'll see how it plays out.

4. Overwatch

Increase Viewership: 3,605,875 Hours (82.53%)

Increase Total Streams: 2007 Channels (5.41 %)

The continued success of the Overwatch League yields even bigger viewership numbers. Week 4 of the season's second stage, hosted by the Dallas Fuel in Allen, Texas, saw Twitch viewership, again, nearly double over the previous seven days, making it the 4th most watched title for the week. While the bump in total channels remains rather modest, the sheer volume of its audience and the speed with which it's ascending lands the game a spot in our top-5 for the week. We expect this trend to continue as the seasons progresses through week 5 and the stage-2 playoffs.

5. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Increase Viewership: 174,204 Hours (1910.51%)

Increase Total Streams: 761 Channels (115.65%)

Ghost Recon: Wildlands was released way back in March of 2017, but it's seen a steady stream of new content ever since, first with two narrative expansions, which were originally planned, and then with the continued release of "Special Operations," smaller packs of free additional missions.

Announced on April 30th, the latest such release was available to download on May 2nd, and features The Punisher star Jon Bernthal as a primary character. As you can see above, this brought new life to title on Twitch, and while it wasn't enough to make it one of the most watched titles for the week, the volume of this new viewership and streamership represents one of the most dramatic shifts on the platform over those seven days, and are enough to award it the final spot in this week's top-5.

Top 5 New Releases

1. Mordhau

Total Viewership: 2,542,669 Hours, 14th Overall

Total Streamers: 8,102 Channels, 27th Overall

Mordhau wasn't just the most successful new title on Twitch over the last week, it actually was viewed for more total hours than our the game at the top of our list above, Sea of Thieves. After first launching its Kickstarter campaign way back in March of 2017, the multiplayer medieval hack 'n slash game from Slovenian developer Triternion was released on April 29th, and currently has a  "Mostly Positive" score on Steam based on over 7000 reviews.

This game has a ton of "stream appeal." The skill-oriented swordplay, emphasis on customization, and focus on multiplayer all creates a rich canvas upon which creators can express themselves, and engage with others. A competitive element is one of the best ways to keep a game "evergreen," because it lets every fight, every stream, be its own narrative. There's always "new content," when the things that makes a title special are the real rivalries that develop between players, the steady improvement, and the real communities of players and streamers who find each other. This title feels like it might have real staying power. We'll be watching closely in the coming weeks to see how it performs once the luster of its release has worn away.  

2. Last Epoch

Total Viewership: 244,039 Hours, 69th Overall

Total Streamers: 566 Channels, 254th Overall

As is often the case with our lists of new releases, there's a large drop off in performance between the first and second titles. No other new game achieved success on the scale of Mordhau this past week, but that doesn't mean there weren't smaller new titles out there doing well. Last Epoch is one such game, released into early access on April 30th. A dungeon crawler in the rich tradition of the Diablo series, it combines that formula with a novel time-travel-oriented narrative and an emphasis on character customization.

The game isn't quite complete, at this point, with online multiplayer promised "mid-beta," the latter word being used interchangeably with "early access." But, in just four days and with little to no marketing push, they've accrued a healthy number of creators and an impressive top-75 showing in total viewership. It's far too early to tell whether this will translate to long-term success. With their focus on character customization and cosmetic microtransactions, its online component will be integral to its plans, and as such will be pivotal when it comes to developing its audience in the future. In the meantime, however, Last Epoch accrued a surprising amount of viewership in its first week, and finds itself in a strong position to build forward towards continued content releases.

3. KurtzPel

Total Viewership: 45,660 Hours, 228th Overall

Total Streamers: 1814 Channels, 104th Overall

While Last Epoch finds itself on this list due to its impressive overall viewership numbers, KurtzPel makes it on the strength of its impressive number of total creators. A free-to-play third-person action game released into early access, it looks like an anime-styled take on Warframe, featuring PvP and PvE battle arenas and a ton of character customization. This game will live and die by the success of its online marketplace, and 1800+ streamers over its first four days is a really solid start in terms of what it likely represents in terms of playerbase. It's not popular, at this point, in terms of viewership, but if it can hold on to its players, over the long term it should have many opportunities to break out. It's not necessarily "one to watch," quite yet, but it was a reasonably strong start for this intriguing title.

4. Pandemic Express

Total Viewership: 58,913 Hours, 196th Overall

Total Streamers: 806 Channels, 206th Overall

Pandemic Express - Zombie Escape didn't have much time to make its presence felt last week, but it made the most of it, reaching peaks of over 14,000 viewers on its first day and nearly 8,000 on the second. An asymmetric multiplayer game that combines the zombie-filled action of Left 4 Dead with the four-on-one structure of games like Friday the 13th, there's a lot to like in terms of streaming potential. It has all the classic features, a multiplayer game with jump-scare potential, strategy, and enough variation to feel like every play session is unique. If a group of popular streamers pick this game up, together, for just a day, it could spike the game's overall numbers; that's how it works with a good multiplayer action title. The next seven days, as it has a full week to build an audience, will be very interesting.

5. Close To the Sun

Total Viewership: 115,391 Hours, 118th Overall

Total Streamers: 243 Channels, >400th Overall

Most Epic Games Store exclusives come with controversy these days, but it's not just flashy AAA games and successful indie-darlings making the leap. Close to the Sun is a Bioshock-inspired narrative adventure through a philosophically slanted dystopia, and it was created by Rome-based studio Storm in a Teacup. For a single-player title exclusive to the Epic Games Store, a place where browsing can be difficult and smaller games hard to find, it accrued an impressive amount of total hours viewed for the week, nearly cracking the top 100. Will it be a long term success on Twitch? Not likely. Its performance was impressive, but very top heavy, with 75,000 of its total viewership coming from only three creators. Still, it's interesting to see this sort of title on the Epic Games Store at all, much less making one of our top-5 lists. It could be a harbinger for more to come, though, as the storefront continues to gobble up big exclusives and expand its reach.

Top 5 Falling

(Graphs show previous two weeks of viewership, for context.)

1. Forager

Decrease Viewership: 617,826 Hours (65.9%)

Decrease Streamers: 507 Channels (15.34%)

First, two weeks ago, it was one of the fastest rising new releases on Twitch, and then last week Forager was actually our top title overall. This week it completes the hat-trick as it takes the top spot in our falling list due to its drop in total viewership, the third largest raw drop in hours on the platform. While its loses in terms of streamers weren't nearly as pronounced, indicating that the title's player-base is very much engaged, it seems that the largest creators have moved on, and the viewers who remain aren't as interested.

It's difficult to stay on top as a single-player title, and while Forager presents the added wrinkles of crafting and resource management, it doesn't seem to have latched on to its audience the way games like Don't Starve have in the past. Don't misunderstand: if it stabilized where it was now, it would still be in a very strong position, and while we're might sound somewhat negative, the past two weeks have proven Forager is a massive success. Still, it seems its time in the spotlight may have passed.

2. Anno 1800

Decrease Viewership: 628,136 Hours (48.88%)

Decrease Streamers: 851 Channels (22.54%)

Anno 1800 saw a nearly identical drop in viewership as Forager, in terms of raw hours, and finds itself in the second position on this list only because it made up a smaller overall percentage of the game's audience. This is the second appearance in this list in as many weeks, after being our top new release the week before that, and it would appear that, as with Forager, while it has retained many of its creators, those with the largest audiences have moved on to other titles. The question thus becomes how attached are those who remain? If it can stabilize now, it will still have a large and dedicated community of streamers, but it seems more likely that this downward trend will continue, at least for now.

3. World War Z

Decrease Viewership: 174,434 Hours (25.73%)

Decrease Streamers: 5263 Channels (34.88%)

World War Z makes its second consecutive appearance in our top-5 falling titles, its decline in both viewership and total streamers maintaining through the week. In addition, the game's best performance during that time, the peak visible above on April 28th, is the result of major streamer "sodapoppin" playing the game for his enormous audience, reaching a peak of just over 35,000 viewers and accounting for nearly 80% of the game's viewership at that time. Without him, the decline would have been even more extreme. There's a lot of Left 4 Dead's dna in World War Z, but it doesn't seem that the latter has harnessed the former's secret sauce for Twitch success. Increased attention from even more large streamers could turn things around, but, for now, it seems likely that World War Z has already reached its streaming peak.

4. Pagan Online

Decrease Viewership: 185,318 Hours (69.78%)

Decrease Streamers: 301 Channels (35%)

Another example of a smaller title retracting after a successful launch, Pagan Online was one of our top new releases in last week's rankings, but that success also meant that the title had a lot to lose, and indeed it did. An early access title, there's still plenty of opportunity for it to grow on the heels of new content releases and updates, but after its reveal, it didn't seem to hold on to the attention of any but its smallest streamers. Without attracting the attention of popular creators and their larger audiences in the future, it seems unlikely that this title will carve out more than a small presence on Twitch.

5. Risk of Rain 2

Decrease Viewership: 297,180 Hours (54.51%)

Decrease Streamers: 710 Channels (9.42%)

Risk of Rain 2 is one of those titles where it's fall tells you more about its success than its failure. While it makes our list due to the volume of its loss in viewership, the fact that it retained more than 90% of its creators indicates that its community of players is still very strong. Attention from audiences is waning, but this is after a wildly successful release which saw more than one million sales, and the title is still in early access with lots of additional content planned, so its likely that the audience will return when new updates refresh the game's novelty. It might be on our top-5 falling list, but there's no reason for the team behind Risk of Rain 2 to feel anything but proud and hopeful. This game is absolutely a success, and this isn't the last of it we'll see on Twitch.

To compare to last week's rankings, click here, and be sure to check out our breakdown of the why Eternal might be the next big thing in collectible card games on Twitch. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for all the latest blogs, announcements, and game marketing news from the team at GAMESIGHT!