“Call of Duty killer”? 3 CoD games are dominating Battlefield 2042 on Twitch

For months leading into Battlefield 2042’s launch, it was lauded as the “Call of Duty killer.” Now, a few weeks past release, the game’s fallen below not one, but three CoD titles in Twitch viewership.

Since 2019, Call of Duty has released four games: Modern Warfare 2019, Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, and Vanguard. In that period, Battlefield rested on the laurels of 2018’s Battlefield V while preparing 2021’s BF2042.

Well, anticipation grew for 2042 and CoD fans everywhere were made quite aware of it. Some defended CoD while others hoped the rival shooter’s success could put pressure on Activision’s developers.

Instead, about two weeks after BF2042’s November 19 release, the game’s interest is… waning. In a surprising turn of events, the “CoD killer” has fewer Twitch viewers than three different Call of Duty titles (as of December 1).

“CoD killer” Battlefield 2042’s Twitch viewership struggles

In a series of tweets, popular CoD content creator JGOD expressed confusion at BF2042’s current state on Twitch. A standard gauge of a game’s interest, JGOD noted how many rows down Battlefield was on Twitch’s games page.

And it’s hard not to think back to the “CoD killer” talk. While BF2042 had 3.2K viewers when JGOD checked, MW19 had 6.3K, Vanguard had 19.8K, and Warzone had 45.3K.

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You can definitely attribute some of those numbers to people streaming Warzone under the MW19 label, or the hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into Vanguard tournaments, but still. It’s not a pretty sight and yet another sign of BF2042’s problems.

Battlefield 2042 disappointment reflected in sinking player base 

As noted by industry insider Tom Henderson, Battlefield 2042’s player base plummeted by a whopping 70% since launch.

With those kinds of numbers, it should be unsurprising that the game’s Twitch viewers also fell.

While CoD Vanguard isn’t without its own faults, it seems that BF2042 won’t be applying as much pressure as some hoped.

The killer seems to be offing itself with bugs and errors, so the rumors of Call of Duty’s demise may have been greatly exaggerated.