Twitch State of Gaming 2026

Today we released our 2026 State of Gaming Report highlighting the titles, streamers, and communities shaping live gaming. Between January 1, 2026 and September 1, 2026*, viewers have watched more than 8.6 billion hours of gaming content on Twitch, the equivalent of one hour for every person on earth. The data underscores why we’re the ultimate home for streamers, viewers, publishers, and developers to come together and build communities.

Our five most-watched games generated a combined nearly 1.7 billion hours watched. Here are their top streamers:

• League of Legends: Caedrel, otplol_, Noway4u_sir
• Counter-Strike: Strogo, Eslcs, Ohnepixel
• GTA V: JLtomy, Fps_shaka, Penta
• VALORANT: Gofns, Mixwell, Lazvell
• World of Warcraft: Echo_esports, Maximum, Metashi12

Gaming audiences embraced a wide range of genres.

• A Reign of Terror: Horror favorites including Dead by Daylight, Phasmophobia, and Silent Hill f kept viewers on edge. The genre generated 287 million hours watched. In addition, the Horror tag reached 93 million hours watched, up 6%.
• Little Critters, Big Communities: Games featuring creatures and companions—including Pokopia, Slime Rancher and Temtem—built big communities. These titles have reached 142 million hours watched.
• Sandbox Staying Power:Minecraft, Tomodachi Life and other sandbox games gave communities endless ways to create and explore. The genre delivered 831 million hours watched – 16x longer than all of recorded human history.
• Indie-pendent Impact: Hours watched for channels tagged for indie game content increased by 51%. Titles like Meccha Chameleon, Slay the Spire 2, Big Walk, and others amassed more than 348M hours watched.

North American creators brought standout energy to gaming throughout the year.

• Jynxzi generated 78 million hours watched across Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege, and League of Legends.
• TheBurntPeanut reached more than 70 million hours watched, driven by streams of ARC Raiders, Rust, and Escape from Tarkov.
• HappyHappyGal was one of the three most-watched Fortnite streamers on Twitch globally.
• RealKatieB subscribers nearly doubled and followers increased by 92%.

• League of Legends
• Fortnite
• GTA V

• League of Legends
• Fortnite
• Minecraft V

• League of Legends
• VALORANT
• Fortnite

• League of Legends
• GTA V
• VALORANT

• World of Warcraft
• League of Legends
• GTA V

• League of Legends
• Counter Strike
• GTA V

• League of Legends
• QSMP
• Fortnite

• League of Legends
• VALORANT
• Tibia

• GTA V
• League of Legends
• VALORANT

• League of Legends
• VALORANT
• Apex Legends

• League of Legends
• Fortnite
• Overwatch

Global creators have broken records, created their own live experiences, and kept the hype up across the world:

• In Brazil, cellbit created his own escape room livestream in an old VHS store.
• In Mexico, aldo_geo created his own Minecraft event called Geoware World that occurred in August and Deusamir, known for streaming Call of Duty, placed 7th at the EWC with his team Leviathan.
• Taiwan creator, Tsukilin recently broke the Twitch Subathon record pushing her to ranked #5 globally and #1 in APAC by the end of the event.
• German creator Noway4u_Sir is the #3 most watched League of Legends streamer on Twitch and BastiGHG is the current #1 most-watched Minecraft streamer on Twitch globally
• In the UK, Vedal987’s and his AI avatar Neuro-sama broke the Hype record for the third time in a row, reaching level 123 for the first time in 2026
• French creator Kamet0 totaled 13M hours watched in 2026 so far on League of Legends and VALORANT.
• In Spain, Rubius accumulated over 21M hours watched, with Minecraft, TCG Card ShopSimulator and Marvel Rivals as his most played categories this year.
• In the Middle East, sultan_feasts is quickly growing with his unique cooking streams making recipes from popular games World of Warcraft and The Witcher.

Twitch Drops turned viewing into participation.

• Streams using the DropsEnabled tag generated 1.6 billion hours — up 46%. Twitch hosted more than 7,500 Drops campaigns, an increase of 20%
• Participation across channels rose 40%
• The number of users who participated and claimed Drops increased 15% to 40 million

“Since our earliest days, Twitch has always been a place for people to come together around their shared love of gaming,” said Mike Minton, Chief Product Officer at Twitch. “8.6 billion hours of gaming content watched in just eight months — and the GTA VI community showing up so big it broke the site — are powerful testaments to the strength of Twitch’s gaming community. There’s something for every kind of gamer on Twitch, whether you’re into creepy or cozy, Soulslikes or sandboxes, or just waiting for the game of the century.”

*Methodology: Unless otherwise stated, dataptember 1, 2026. Hours-watched figures are rounded. Growth percentages compare the period with January 1 through September 1, 2025