A new raid in Destiny 2 means many things for players and fans of the FPS RPG franchise.
For players, it means it’s time to group up with five friends and take on the game’s newest, most challenging endgame content. Secondly, it means a World First raid race champion will be crowned. But it also means huge viewership on Twitch for those who choose to watch instead of raid.
Around the hour of the launch of the new raid, a total of over 468,000 viewers were tuning in to the Destiny 2 directory on Twitch, catapulting it to first place on-site just in front of the Just Chatting category, and well ahead of League of Legends, VALORANT, Fortnite, and CS:GO.
The top of the directory included Datto leading the way with well over 70,000 viewers, Sweatcicle, Aztecross, Gladd, and three-time World First winner Saltagreppo looking to repeat as champion again.
Related: Who is winning the Destiny 2 Lightfall Root of Nightmares World First race?
A new addition to this year’s race, though, is an official Twitch Rivals livestream. In previous years, streamers have hosted watch parties for the race, but the Rivals channel had over 40,000 viewers watching on as hosts cycled through the perspectives of racers. There are also exclusive emblem drops as viewership rewards undoubtedly helping boost the viewership on day one of the raid.
As the raid race intensifies, viewership may only grow throughout the day. Destiny 2 raid races usually last anywhere from six to 12 hours, depending on the difficulty of that specific raid.
Either way, Destiny 2 viewers and players are in for a memorable weekend with Root of Nightmares.
Update at 1:35pm CT: Just over 90 minutes into the race, Destiny 2 now has well over 500,000 viewers on Twitch.
