Twitch viewers watched more than 8.6 billion hours of gaming content on the platform between January 1 and September 1, 2026, according to the company’s “2026 State of Gaming Report.” Twitch describes the figure as the equivalent of one hour of viewing for every person on earth.

The report, compiled from Twitch’s internal data, breaks down viewership by game, genre, region, and streamer over the eight-month period, with growth percentages measured against the same window in 2025.

Top Games and Streamers

Twitch’s five most-watched games combined for nearly 1.7 billion hours watched. League of Legends led viewership, with Caedrel, otplol_ and Noway4u_sir as its top streamers. Other leading titles included Counter-Strike, GTA V, VALORANT and World of Warcraft, each with its own top three streamers named in the report.

Among North American creators, Jynxzi generated 78 million hours watched streaming Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege and League of Legends, while TheBurntPeanut reached more than 70 million hours watched across ARC Raiders, Rust and Escape from Tarkov. HappyHappyGal ranked among the three most-watched Fortnite streamers globally, and RealKatieB saw subscribers nearly double alongside a 92% increase in followers.

Genre Trends

Sandbox games, including Minecraft and Tomodachi Life, drove 831 million hours watched, a figure Twitch says is 16 times longer than all of recorded human history. Horror titles such as Dead by Daylight, Phasmophobia and Silent Hill f generated 287 million hours watched, with the Horror tag itself reaching 93 million hours watched, up 6% year over year.

Games featuring creatures and companions, including Pokopia, Slime Rancher and Temtem, reached 142 million hours watched. Indie game content saw the sharpest growth of any category cited in the report: hours watched for indie-tagged channels rose 51%, with titles including Meccha Chameleon, Slay the Spire 2 and Big Walk amassing more than 348 million hours watched combined.

Regional Breakdown

League of Legends ranked among the top three most-watched games in nearly every region Twitch tracked, including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, France, Brazil, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and Australia and New Zealand. GTA V led viewership in Japan, and World of Warcraft topped the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland).

The report also highlighted individual creator milestones by region. In Brazil, cellbit ran a livestreamed escape room built inside a former VHS store. In Mexico, aldo_geo launched a Minecraft event called Geoware World in August, and Deusamir placed seventh at the Esports World Cup streaming Call of Duty with his team, Leviathan. Taiwan-based streamer Tsukilin broke Twitch’s subathon record, moving to fifth globally and first in the Asia-Pacific region. In the UK, Vedal987 and his AI avatar Neuro-sama broke Twitch’s Hype record for a third consecutive time, reaching level 123. French streamer Kamet0 totaled 13 million hours watched in 2026 across League of Legends and VALORANT, while Spain’s Rubius accumulated more than 21 million hours watched, led by Minecraft, TCG Card Shop Simulator and Marvel Rivals.

Twitch Drops

Streams using the DropsEnabled tag generated 1.6 billion hours watched, up 46% year over year. Twitch hosted more than 7,500 Drops campaigns during the period, a 20% increase, while participation across channels rose 40%. The number of users who claimed Drops rose 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.”

Image source: Twitch
The full report is available here

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