It appears Apex Legends is going well with its 5th anniversary update as the player count has spiked on Steam in addition to the game’s Twitch viewership.
A month into Season 20 and things are looking great for Apex Legends in terms of player count. It appears the game is bouncing back after the middling performances of Season 18 and Season 19.
Apex Legends Season 20 brought a significant shakeup to the gameplay mechanics along with a much-needed refresh for the players. This was enough to attract players back to the game, which the community considers a step in the right direction. The game's streaming viewership also reflects a positive trend.
Apex Legends player count is in the Top 5 on Steam
Among the more surprising aspects of this resurgence is just how popular Apex Legends has become on Steam. Despite Helldivers 2 being the rage right now, more Steam users have played Apex Legends over the last 30 days. It also has a marginally higher 30-day peak than Helldivers 2.
Bear in mind that these numbers are only reflective of Apex Legends' popularity on Steam and not any other platform. Going by the trend, it's likely that other platforms are seeing just as much of a popularity spike as Steam.
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Twitch viewership is on the rise too
It's only been one month of Apex Legends Season 20 but it's clear to see that more people are watching Apex Legends streams on Twitch. For context, Season 19 released on October 31, and the average number of concurrent viewers on Twitch for the first full month was 36.1k. Comparatively, Season 20, which was released on February 13 saw an average of 46.9k viewers in February. This isn't even a full month of viewership considering the update was launched in the middle of the month.
The numbers are interesting in terms of hours watched as well. If we look at the game's viewership numbers for November 2023, Apex Legends streams were viewed for 25.9m hours in the first full month of Season 19. Comparatively, February 2024 saw 32.6m hours of Apex Legends streamed on the platform. As of March 13, the viewership sits at 13.8 hours and this will surely increase as we complete the month.
Season 19 vs Season 20 player counts
Apex Legends Season 19 released on October 31, while Season 20 on February 14. Considering these dates, Season 20 has brought about a welcome resurgence in the game's player base just going off Steam's numbers.
Throughout Season 19, Apex Legends struggled to break past the 150k concurrent players mark. February saw 185k average players and the game has seen over 200k players on average over the last 30 days, which is impressive. Only CS2, Dota 2, and PUBG are being played more at the moment.
It appears the new character upgrade system with legend perks has worked as intended and Respawn Entertainment continues to take steps in the right direction. Additionally, it's worth noting that players are grinding their way towards the Flatline Reactive skin's free recolour which can be acquired by completing season long challenges.
Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest esports and Apex Legends news.
