When Apex Legends released back in February 2019, it quickly became one of the most popular games in the world. Since then, it’s viewership on Twitch has seen a sharp decline, prompting fans to question why this has happened.
Apex Legends is Respawn Entertainment’s foray into the battle royale realm, with teams of three dropping into Kings Canyon in search of a victory, and the title of Apex Champion.
The game followed in the footsteps of Fortnite, which quickly became the top game on Twitch – but unlike Epic Games’ massive battle royale title, Apex Legends has noticed a steep decline that has yet to affect Fortnite.
What happened to Apex Legends on Twitch?
Apex Legends’ surprise release in February led to a ton of fanfare, with hundreds of thousands of players immediately hopping on to test out the new game.
With so little known about the game ahead of its launch, fans were desperate to watch and learn about the game in its opening weeks, with Apex Legends regularly drawing an average viewership of 300,000 – at times almost doubling Fortnite’s.
Popular streamers like Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek also found major success streaming the game, with the Canadian at one point finding himself running the most subscribed-to Twitch channel on the platform.
However, new information from TwitchMetrics shows that the initial bubble that Apex Legends found appears to have burst, with the game now just breaking 50,000 average viewers.
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Why has Apex Legends’ viewership dropped?
The answer to why Apex Legends’ viewership has dropped so significantly isn’t a simple one, but rather a mixture of a number of reasons that have contributed to the current downfall.
One of the biggest issues the game faces is the flurry of bugs that have crept into the game after a largely solid debut. Players have become frustrated with the way that Respawn address these issues, with shroud even stating that he may quit the game in favor of competitor PUBG.
Cheaters have also started to run rampant on the battle royale title, with Respawn struggling to stem the tide of those using cheats to improve their gameplay, despite a major banning sweep.
Fortnite has also dealt the game a major blow. The release of Season 8 on February 28 didn’t seem to do much to slow the momentum of Apex Legends, but following the announce of the Fortnite World Cup and the subsequent qualifiers, a number of players have switched back in the hope of securing a spot in New York City.
Finally, while Apex Legends fans finally got the Battle Pass in late March, many were unhappy with the content that was included in it, and the disappointment of the Battle Pass may have seen them move on to other games.
Of course, just because the viewership numbers on Twitch have dipped doesn’t mean the game is dying, however, it is an interesting sign that shows some players have lost patience with the title.
