The battle royale genre has become one of the biggest on Twitch, with games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Warzone reeling in hundreds of thousands of viewers.
They’ve become hubs for both casual and competitive players alike, and as such they’ve become hugely popular on Twitch, as fans watch and learn from their favorite streamers.
While Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel is more of a variety streamer, playing a huge selection of games, he’s definitely dabbled with battle royale titles in the past, and generally maintains a high viewership when doing so.
With Apex Legends popping off at the launch of Season 10, xQc actually explained why he believes Saqib ‘Lirik’ Zahid deserves the credit for the popularization of the genre.
Lirik started streaming all the way back in 2011 with World of Warcraft, but over the years has broadcast gameplay on multiple titles and become one of the most highly-respected names on the platform.
He obviously has a huge back catalog of streams on different BR titles too, and xQc explained why Lirik was the one to actually start the trend.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
“The fact that Lirik logged in and played that [Arma mod] at the beginning, popularized BR to the point it ended up making Fortnite overall,” xQc explained. “If it wasn’t for Lirik, we wouldn’t have Fortnite, and gaming wouldn’t be as big. I think it’s a big domino effect.”
xQc is likely referencing Lirik’s streams of a popular Arma 2 BR mod many moons ago, which was a lot of viewers’ first exposure to what battle royale could be.
That then grew and, over time, battle royale games slowly took over the gaming sphere, to the point that just about everyone plays them now, and every major game dev is looking at getting in on the action.
xQc isn’t the first person to say this, with a H1Z1 developer back in 2018 sharing a similar sentiment. Whether you’re a fan of BRs or not, they’ve become insanely popular, and it might be all thanks to Lirik.
