Hogwarts Legacy has broken the record for viewership of a single-player game on Twitch, despite significant debate over individuals' decisions over whether or not to broadcast the game.
Last night, the game peaked at 1,253,916 viewers across all broadcasts (according to Twitchtracker). That pushes it past the 1.14 million record that Cyberpunk 2077 set in the days after its release in December 2020. Around that peak almost 30,000 people were streaming the game on the platform. The game has made a significant push for Twitch audiences, with dedicated Hogwarts Legacy Twitch drops, likely increasing viewership.
While Twitch viewership is a slightly nebulous metric, it's often used to evaluate the success of a game around launch, as well as the ongoing health of live-service games. At the time of writing, games like League of Legends, Valorant, and Overwatch 2 sit close to Hogwarts Legacy in terms of viewership; the next single-player game, a long way down the list, is Elden Ring.
The game's start on Twitch is strong enough, but it's also been subject to fraught debate within the platform's audience. Some viewers have protested against individual streamers' decisions to play the game for their audience, leading to accusations of bullying and witch-hunting, as well as more backlash within the wider community.
Streamer Hasan Piker addressed that backlash amid his decision not the stream the game; "we know that it's not worth it to get fucking bullied endlessly and called transphobic [...] when we have massive queer communities and audiences."
The release of Hogwarts Legacy has been the subject of criticism and debate due to J.K. Rowling's public stance on gender identity, which continues to challenge the inclusivity at the heart of the Harry Potter community. Here is our explainer on the Hogwarts Legacy controversy.
