Apex Legends Falls Hard On Twitch

The last time we talked about Apex Legends, we were talking about its meteoric rise, garnishing millions of players all around the world and doing so astonishingly well that even Fortnite, its main competitor and biggest game since Checkers, stole two of its key mechanics: the ability to respawn teammates and the smart-ping system that’s been the saving grace for people like me who hate talking. Just… hate it in principle.

Point is, it was looking to be a real challenger for Fortnite. But every dream must die, and while Apex Legends is far from gone and out, it’s certainly suffered a huge blow over the last month, because over on Twitch, the number of people watching Apex Legends streams have dropped. Hard.

Specifically, at the start of February, it was riding high, with over twice as many viewers as your ol’ pal Fortnite, sitting at around 35 million total views every week. But after peaking in mid-February will just over 40 million total views, it dipped hard: dropping down to just over 10 million views at the end of March.

Fortnite, meanwhile, has been steady and consistent: just under 20 million at the start of February, but by the end of March, just over 20 million. Basically a flat line, that only went up a little bit when so many people stopped watching Apex Legends, which suggests that routine Fortnite viewers only made a small portion of the people who came to – and eventually left – Apex Legends.

Now, does that mean Apex Legends is on the verge of death? Of course not. Twitch views aren’t the same as player count, and they’re still probably making plenty of money. But this is still a sign that maybe, just maybe, Apex Legends is just flavor of the season… and before long everyone will be back at Fortnite.

Only time will tell, as I’m fond of saying.