#Top5OnTwitch For July 13th - 19th

Which games are rising on the Twitch charts? Which streamers are dominating the most popular titles? Check out our official 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.

Graphs for Top Rising titles show previous two weeks for context.

Top Five Rising

Splatoon 2

Increase Viewership: 122,493 Hours (212.67%)

Increase Channels: 2165 Creators (172.37%)

After two years of frequent updates and support, Splatoon 2 held its "Splatpocalypse," the final of what it calls its "Splatfests" over the weekend, and the game's Twitch community showed up in a big way for the game's final hurrah. Since its release, these events have pitted the title's global community against each other, having players pick sides and compete, in this final case for 72 hours in what was dubbed the battle between "Team Order and Team Chaos." Past splatfests have featured fights between teams like "Warm vs. Cold Breakfasts" and "Socks vs. Sweaters."

The uptick in Twitch viewership, and participation from streamers, is only a part of the story here. What's really worth noting is that, after two years, the team at Nintendo's strategy for keeping this game's community engaged and thriving has been incredibly effective, to that point that, here, in its final iteration, two years in, the final Splatfest was enough to rise Splatoon 2 all the way to the top of the Twitch charts in terms of upward movement. No title was trending upward more, this week, and it's a testament to the power of an effective long-term support plan built around community engagement.

Dauntless

Increase Viewership: 219,803 Hours (195.37%)

Increase Channels: 1150 Creators (28.17%)

Dauntless, the cross platform monster-hunting online action title, saw its first major update this week, as the addition of the "Island of Trials" amounts to the first real "endgame content" for the free-to-play title. Featuring a brand new area with high-level monsters to fight, the update also leverages healthy competition amongst its community members by featuring weekly challenges, the eponymous "Trials," which will have public leaderboards for players to climb.

This is a big moment for Dauntless, because it's our first good look at what their plans for the future, how they'll support the game as it grows and hopes to carve out a larger niche for itself on Twitch over time, will shape up. Additional endgame content, or the "evergame," as which it sometimes is referred, is the key to creating an experience that keeps players engaged for months or even years. Players experience the story of Destiny first, for example, but the content that keeps it fresh and alive is what occupies players once they've completed the campaign(s), the systems put in place to keep the experience fun into perpetuity. Dauntless is increasingly focusing on that element of the title as they move forward, and this is a good example of how effective these new releases can be. For many always online games-as-service titles like this, it takes six months or even a year before the title really "comes into its own." Dauntless has a long road ahead, but it's off  to a great start.

World of Warcraft

Increase Viewership: 8,403,196 Hours (153.55%)

Increase Channels: 4293 Creators (18.79%)

The "Race to World First" event which was announced on July 6th and played a big roal in World of Warcraft making our list of top rising titles last week officially began on the 16th, and it resulted in yet another big bump in overall viewership, enough to, again, make it one of the fastest growing games on the platform. People don't normally think of WoW when they conjure up games with active competitive communities, but their somewhat frequent additions of new raids have organically led to informal races amongst players to become the first to complete the new content, or the fastest. This most recent event is taking that ad hoc competition and making it official, and it's already proven to be a big draw for Twitch viewership. WoW is one of the most influential games of all time, and its team has little to prove, but it's impressive how they manage to still find new ways to reinvigorate their community, even after all this time.

iRacing.com

Increase Viewership: 166,555 Hours (163.44%)

Increase Channels: 297 Creators (21.48%)

iRacing is built on competition, with the automotive simulation title leveraging leaderboards and the races themselves to build a dedicated community of players and streamers who are looking for the most realistic, most "professional" feeling race experience out there. As you can see above, the final day of this week's rankings saw the title explode in viewership, and that was because it was the day they held their "24 Hours of Spa" event, a day-long race in which the eventual winners were actual Formula 1 drivers Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. That professional racers were the ones to take home the gold over the weekend speaks to the niche in which iRacing has managed to carve out its dedicated community, by focusing on intensely realistic simulation and a real-life competitive feel. Getting this level of engagement from actual professional drivers is thus a huge draw for their already engaged audience, and it resulted in the game being one of the fastest risers on Twitch.

Monster Hunter World

Increase Viewership: 327,673 Hours (99.71%)

Increase Channels: 1360 Creators (25.62%)

Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne, the next major expansion to the vaunted adventure title was announced this past week via a cover story in Game Informer, and the presence of preview streams from the developers themselves combined with the increased hype and anticipation the announcement generated have led to the game earning the final spot in our list of the fastest growing titles on Twitch. As you can see above, the overall increase is due to punctuated moments, rather than being consistent throughout the week. This is primarily due to the fact that half of the game's increase in viewership came from one of the biggest names in gaming, Lirik. Given the size of his audience, every time he streamed the game, it resulted in a huge spike in numbers.

Engagement from a streamer like Lirik is a huge win, but doesn't lead to sustainable growth over time, as the moment they leave for something new, that viewership is gone. Still, the promise of Iceborne leads us to believe that further growth remains on the horizon. We look forward to seeing how it plays out.

Top New Releases

1. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order

Total Viewership: 338,673 Hours, 66th Overall

Total Channels: 1494 Creators, 144th Overall

The Switch exclusive action RPG from Team Ninja and published by Nintendo hit the shelves late last week, and quickly emerged as the biggest release of the rankings period, blowing past the competition with only one day of viewership. It's been nearly ten years since the last entry in the series, and unless you've been living under a rock, you're more than aware that the past decade has seen Marvel properties explode, their "Cinematic Universe" becoming the biggest franchise in film. It's no surprise, then, to see this title garner so much attention, with it being only the second notable video game, after the PS4's Spiderman, to be unleashed while Marvel Studios has undertaken their world-dominating run at the box office.

The result is the fastest rising new title on Twitch, with the game accruing more than one third of a million hours of viewership in just a single day. Now, as a linear, story-driven title, it seems unlikely that Ultimate Alliance will remain at the top of the charts for very long. There's plenty of replayability given the countless new player characters, alternate skins, and other content buried within the game, but with minimal exploration, and instead a focus on combat and narrative cutscenes, those new characters likely won't be enough to keep the game fresh from a viewer's perspective for very long. Still, this early performance is impressive, especially considering it's exclusive to the Switch, from which streaming can be more complicated than a PC. It's just one day of viewership, but it was a good one, and bodes well for the weeks ahead.

2. Killsquad

Total Viewership: 56,088 Hours,  247th Overall

Total Channels: 849 Creators, 226th Overall

Killsquad didn't accrue the viewership numbers of several of the titles below it on this list, but its significantly larger pool of participating creators give it the edge, landing it in the second spot of this week's rankings. Released into early access on July 16th, the online co-op action RPG leveraged many of the things that have made looter shooters and similar titles so successful: unique weapons, loot, bounties, and cooperative play. Presented in a classic top-down style, it combines the gameplay loop of titles like The Division and Destiny with the combat of Diablo, and its audience has quickly scooped it up, accruing nearly 1000 participating creators in just four days. With much more development, and thus content, still to come, the team at Novarama have a good set of tools at their disposal to keep the sizable audience of players they've already acquired around for the long haul. A smaller title from a smaller team, it's unclear just how big this title can get, but there's no questioning that it's off to an outstanding start.

3. Night Call

Total Viewership: 108,583 Hours, 156th Overall

Total Channels: 189 Creators, 642nd Overall

Night Call shares DNA with other surprising indie titles like Papers Please, which uses a relatively mundane real life occupation to deliver a compelling story through the dynamics that job entails. Whereas the latter, though, was about working as a customs agent, Night Call puts the player in the role of a cab driver, tasking you with investigating passengers through conversation as a means of tracking down a serial killer terrorizing the city.

Designed by Monkey Moon and Black Muffin, published by Raw Fury, Night Call feels like a title that might catch variety streamers by surprise, but won't stick around long in terms of its streaming presence. With its very narrative-focused structure, and the gameplay mostly revolving around conversation in lieu of some sort of action or tense decision making, players may enjoy it briefly with their audiences, but will move on as soon as the story has run its course. Still, an impressive first week of production from a smaller title few saw coming.

4. Break the Game

Total Viewership: 64,674 Hours, 228th Overall

Total Channels: 42 Creators, 1511th Overall

Break the Game is a simple-graphics platforming adventure that teases a metafictional narrative wherein the game itself has trapped someone within it, and the player is tasked with discovering what's really happening and potentially helping "Kevin" escape. It's presented as a  "more than meets the eye" title, like Pony Island and One Shot, and one of the biggest draw for potential players is uncovering the mystery of just what is really going on. As such, it makes a great choice for variety streamers, as that experience of slowly having the real game revealed to you can be great fun to undertake with an engaged audience. Again, its staying power on Twitch will be limited, as this appeal only lasts until the mystery itself has been unraveled. Once the game has been finished, there's no replayability; creators and their audiences will simply move on. Still, this level of initial viewership definitely increased the game's sales in the first week, and should prove to be a real success for such a small title.

5. Gloomhaven

Total Viewership: 50,095 Hours, 261st Overall

Total Channels: 210 Creators, 599th Overall

Gloomhaven is a cooperative board game released in 2017, and its digital counterpart was released on Steam on July 17th. Developed by Flaming Soul Studios and published by Asmodee Digital, the new game leverages the gameplay and structure of a tactical RPG with the dungeon-crawling structure of tabletop RPG systems and adaptations like the Baldur's Gate series, and, as it is in early access, will continue to see active development in the weeks and months ahead.

More traditional RPG experiences have been making a comeback lately, with titles like Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny bringing the strategy, lore, and combat of classic isometric titles to a new generation of players. We've even recently seen the announcement of Baldur's Gate III, the first entry in the vaunted franchise in nearly twenty years. It is thus a fantastic idea to try and leverage that moment and the success of the physical tabletop game into a successful digital version of Gloomhaven, and its off to a quality, if modest, start. There's obviously much development that still must take place, but that's often an opportunity to bring in new players, to use each new content release as an opportunity to build excitement, and get the game into new players' hands. We look forward to seeing how the team takes advantage of this release structure and the continued popularity of their real-life game as this digital version moves forward.

Top Overall by Viewership

1. Fortnite (No Change)

Total Viewership: 24,657,158 Hours (+48.99%)

Total Channels: 361,937 Creators (+20.12%)

Top Five Channels By Viewership

1. Tfue - 1,515,823 Hours Viewed

2. Symfuhny - 712,214 Hours Viewed

3. SolaryFortnite - 656,582 Hours Viewed

4. Dakotaz - 619,747 Hours Viewed

5. NICKMERCS - 579,350 Hours Viewed

2. Teamfight Tactics (↑3)

Total Viewership: 22,879,483 Hours (+69.60%)

Total Channels: 53,813 Creators (+20.09%)

Top Five Channels By Viewership

1. DisguisedToast - 988,421 Hours Viewed

2. 한동숙 - 951,103 Hours Viewed

3. Reckful - 615,728 Hours Viewed

4. Rakin - 563,749 Hours Viewed

5. itsHafu - 557,163 Hours Viewed

3. League of Legends (↓1)

Total Viewership: 21,793,315 Hours (+41.31%)

Total Channels: 90,354 Creators (+15.38%)

Top Five Channels By Viewership

1. Riot Games - 2,077,503 Hours Viewed

2. LCK Korea - 784,371 Hours Viewed

3. RiotGamesBrazil - 396,912 Hours Viewed

4. RiotGamesJP - 346,056 Hours Viewed

5. Mandiocaa1 - 339,271 Hours Viewed

4. Grand Theft Auto V (↓1)

Total Viewership: 17,909,403 Hours (+28.56%)

Total Channels: 43,739 Creators (+22.83%)

Top Five Channels By Viewership

1. Lord Kebun - 628,656 Hours Viewed

2. Vader - 433,566 Hours Viewed

3. thedarkness - 404,690 Hours Viewed

4. TheKAIRI78 - 316,167 Hours Viewed

5. 狂暴小建 - 310,148 Hours Viewed

5. CS:GO (↑1)

Total Viewership: 14,088,346 Hours (+62.18%)

Total Channels: 67,469 Creators (+22.51%)

Top Five Channels By Viewership

1. Gaules - 2,203,803 Hours Viewed

2. ESL CSGO - 1,064,388 Hours Viewed

3. BLASTProSeries - 762,215 Hours Viewed

4. Starladder CS en - 604,621 Hours Viewed

5. StarLadder5 - 409,612 Hours Viewed

Want to compare the above to last week's rankings and see how things have changed? Check them out here! And be sure to check out our breakdown of how Wargaming has managed to created one of the most consistent streaming communities on Twitch, and to follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for all the latest blogs, announcements, and game marketing news from the team at GAMESIGHT!