Apex Legends is in a bad way right now. Season 15 has been viewed as underwhelming by many players frustrated with a stale meta. So underwhelming that they’re not even watching the pros stream it on Twitch very often. The average viewership for the game dropped to a two-year low, hitting levels similar to November 2020. Apex Legends is sailing through stormy waters with a reduced number of viewers on Twitch and a frustrated player base.
There are several reasons players and Twitch viewers are frustrated with Apex Legends. The game is also losing players alongside viewers and the numbers reflect that downturn. The competitive Apex community is getting louder about the game and the Twitch viewers are starting to drop out. But what do the numbers say? Let’s take a look.
Just how many viewers is Apex Legends losing on Twitch?
Image Source: TwitchTracker.com
As observed on twitchtracker.com, Apex Legends saw an average of 44.2k concurrent viewers in October. This was a significant drop from the 65.6k viewers in September. The numbers rose to 61.5k in November but that doesn’t paint the full picture. Apex Legends consistently received over 80k concurrent viewers per month between January and May 2022. This was also the case in the second half of 2021. The viewership has been consistently dropping below expected levels since September 2022. Even with the recent release of season 15 it appears that things aren’t looking bright at the moment.
An underwhelming Season 15
Towards the end of Season 14, fans were looking forward to the upcoming content update because the game had gotten stale in terms of meta and gameplay. Besides that, there were also several problems with cheaters in Ranked matchmaking which Respawn Entertainment is yet to address. Season 15 dropped and there’s nothing more to it than a few weapon changes and a new legend and map. For a few days, the hype around the newly released map remained high. However, once the novelty wore off players became frustrated. Known players in the scene such as Noko have made their frustrations known on social media.
There were zero changes to the Legend meta and Ranked Matchmaking, which came as a community disappointment. Players grinding through solo ranked queues have been expressing frustration with the system for a while now and were dejected to see no additional changes. While these things aren’t direct correlations to viewership being low, it must be taken into account as something on the mind of viewers and players alike.
The “Scan” meta menace
The gameplay trailer for Season 15 teased Catalyst as the counter to “scan” Legends. The likes of Bloodhound, Crypto and Seer have become extremely frustrating to play against, thanks to their increased popularity. Almost every squad has a Seer and dealing with his ultimate can be especially frustrating. However, Catalyst turned out to be anti-climactic in regard to her impact on the meta, or lack thereof. She can shut down other scan Legends, but Seer’s ultimate still took priority. This bug was fixed today according to Respawn.
For Catalyst to wait for her ultimate skill to be useful against recon Legends is largely limiting. Seer continues to be among the most popular legends in the meta, and his impact has not been lessened by Catalyst’s presence at all.
Top Streamers feeling unmotivated to stream
Casual players, especially pro-streamers and competitive players have become increasingly vocal about cheaters in high-tier Ranked gameplay. In fact, FURIA’s HisWattson has repeatedly tweeting about the top-ranked Apex Predator playing with cheaters in his squad. HisWattson currently sits at rank 2 and Respawn or Hideouts are yet to address this issue.
A quick look at HisWattson’s numbers on Twitch reveal that his channel currently receives an average of 7,657 viewers. This is a noticable drop from his average viewership in August, when it was over 10,000.
It isn’t just HisWattson who’s facing problems. ImperialHal from TSMFTX was so put-off by the underwhelming season 15 patch notes that he decided to delay his path, as seen on their posts via social media.
Twitch Viewers flocking to newer games
Since its release on 28th October, Call of Duty Modern Warfare II has been drawing sensational numbers on Twitch
With the release of Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, players and Twitch viewers alike are flocking over to watch streams from these games. Both titles possess a strong following that is taking away some of the thunder from Apex Legends, especially considering the Season 15 update. Call of Duty Modern Warfare II is actively drawing over 90k visitors on average in November. The game is a direct competitor to Apex Legends. However, some drop-off is expected given that games such as Overwatch 2 are going through strong reward drops campaigns and post-season tournaments that wrapped up as recent as last week.
Respawn Entertainment will need to move fast and release more content and balance updates if they plan on keeping audiences engaged. Season 15 is already set to be among the longer seasons of Apex Legends and if things continue the way they are, viewership could continue to see a slide down the rankings.
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