The Most Popular Games of 2025 On Live Streaming

2025 is a year full of contrasts in the world of gaming. Indies rocked it critically and commercially Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33 made history at The Game Awards as the first indie debut to win Game of the Year. But on the other hand, dark times were brewing as the industry faced massive layoffs that hit thousands of developers at Microsoft, Warner Bros, EA, and more. Despite the behind-the-scenes turmoil, this year brought major releases such as ARC raider, Monster Hunter: WildernessAnd Mario Kart Worldin addition to the long-awaited Hollow Knight: Silk Song.

Thanks to a mix of big-name releases and indie films, livestream viewership remains strong. However, as we’ll see in a moment, reaching top streaming viewership levels is now harder than ever. In this article, we show which games will dominate live streaming in 2025, which new releases will get the most attention, and how different genres are evolving.

If you’re looking for more macro-scale live streaming data, check out a complete breakdown of 2025 trends in our FREE 2025 Live Streaming Trends Report:

TL;DR Takeaways by Stream Hatchet:

• League of Legends beats Grand Theft Auto V for the top spot this year thanks to 4% YoY growth to 1.95 billion hours watched
• ARC Raiders clocked 129 million hours in its first 30 days, making it the most-watched launch title of 2025 based on debut viewership
• The First-Person Shooter genre was the most popular among live streaming viewers with 4.6 billion hours watched, led by Counter-Strike which accounted for 28% of that figure.

Long-established IPs like League of Legends and GTA V dominate the top 10 games

The top of the live streaming charts in 2025 looks very familiar League of Legends remains at #1 with 1.95 billion hours watched (up 4.3% from 2024) and GTA V trailing with 1.9 billion hours viewed (although there was a slight decline of 4.5%). Counter-attack was in the top 3 with 1.28 billion hours watched, showing healthy growth of 29.3% YoY. The rest of the list reads like a who’s who of live streaming advocates, with VALUE, Minecraft, Dota 2, Fortniteand similar mobile titles Mobile Legends: Bang Bang And Garena Free Fire.

The only newcomer who managed to break into the top 10 is Robloxranked #9 with 515 million hours watched. This success is largely due to the viral success of “Grow a Garden,” one of the experiences created by the platform’s users. But this success has also led to more sustained viewership for other new experiences like “Steal a Brainrot.” What stands out here is the resilience of these established titles, with most showing moderate growth or remaining stable. Breaking into the streaming giant’s exclusive club seems insurmountable for new games.

ARC Raiders Leads New Releases With a Little Help from Genre Trends

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be new releases in 2025 that will shake up the meta. ARC raider beat the competition among new releases in 2025, generating 129 million hours watched in its first 30 days. That’s a huge advantage over second place Escape from Tarkov at 104 million hours watched. Embark Studios’ co-op extraction shooter has clearly caught the attention of the streaming community, although genre plays a big role here: Shooter games and battle royale titles tend to dominate live streams thanks to their watchability and competitive nature. Monster Hunter: Wilderness rounding out the top 3 with 74 million hours watched, followed by sports titles EA Sports FC 26 in 62M.

A mix of AAA and indie titles in the top 10 tells an interesting story. Battlefield 6, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7And Kingdom Come: Deliverance II represents the big budget side, while Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33 (which later swept The Game Awards) made it into the top 100 along with horror games REPO Presence Mario Kart World in 10th place with 34 million hours watched shows Nintendo’s continued ability to generate buzz, even if Switch 2 launch titles can’t match the raw viewership numbers of established streaming-friendly genres.

Publishers Try to Revive Viewership for Old IPs With Nostalgia and Fresh Content

In 2025, publishers continue their dual strategy: breathing new life into existing games through expansions and DLC, while digging into their back catalog for remakes and remasters. Expansions keep live service games fresh and communities active, while remakes offer the opportunity to reintroduce classic IPs to new audiences. But as streaming data shows, this strategy does not produce the same results.

World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria Classic dominated the DLC and expansion categories with 36.7 million hours watched in the first 30 days, more than double second place Hearthstone: Towards the Emerald Dream at 13M. The top 5 is dominated by Blizzard titles, with Destiny 2: Edge of Destiny and two Hearthstone expansion also cracks the list. RimWorld: Adventure rounded out the top 5 with 11.2 million hours watched, showing that even single-player strategy games can generate solid streaming numbers when they release major content updates.

The remake and remaster categories tell different stories. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered leading with 31.1 million hours watched, but the decline was sharp: Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater pulled in just 4.6 million hours watched, followed by Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles and 3.6 million. The remaining titles almost reached 2 million hours watched each. Nostalgia alone isn’t enough to drive massive streaming viewership unless the remaster is a truly iconic title with a huge fan base.

FPS Games Lead All Genres, But Market Concentration for Top Games Varies

First-person shooter games dominated live streaming in 2025 with 4.6 billion hours watched, followed by Action-Adventure and MOBA with 3.8 billion hours each. RPGs and MMORPGs had 1.9 billion hours watched, while Shooters (non-FPS) generated 1.7 billion and Battle Royales 1.3 billion. Games are categorized by their primary genre for this analysis only, so there is no double counting of views. That means games like Fortnitewhich has several game modes from different Shooter subgenres.

What’s interesting is how different genres sometimes rely heavily on their top titles. Action-Adventure powered by GTA V (1.9B of 3.8B, or 50%), and MOBAs almost entirely League of Legends (2B of 3.8B, or 53%). Even the Shooter genre shows high concentration, with Fortnite accounted for 41% of the total. On the other hand, genres like RPG and MMORPG show healthier competition: Path of Exile 2 only represents 7% of total RPGs, and Roblox accounted for 27% of MMORPG viewership. While some genres are essentially single-game events on streaming, others have a real diversity that can make them more resilient to changing player interests (and more attractive to developers trying to break through with new IPs).

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2025 proves that live streaming is more profitable for incumbents. League of Legends, GTA VAnd Counter-attack isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and getting to the top 10 requires as much dedication to community building as it does ARC raider and Burnt Nuts. The data also reveals clear differences in the function of genres in streaming: Some are just single-game shows (League of Legends for MOBAs, GTA V for Action-Adventure), while other games such as RPGs and MMORPGs show healthier competition which can make them more attractive to newcomers.

For publishers looking to make some noise in 2026, understanding these patterns is just the beginning. Game Awards Celebration Chiaroscuro: Expedition 33 shows that breakthrough success is still possible, but it requires more than just great play. This requires a deep understanding of the live-streaming landscape: Which platforms are growing, which streamers are driving discovery, and how viewer behavior is changing across different types of games.

To find out more about the platforms, games, and streamers powering the live streaming community in 2025, check out our complete 2025 Live Streaming Trends Report for FREE now: