Escape from Tarkov has pulled pretty good viewership numbers on Twitch since releasing in 2016, but it tends to ebb and flow throughout the course of the year depending on which streamers are playing and what events are happening.
The pre-wipe event at the end of each year tends to be the biggest boom, which continued in Dec. 2022. What was surprising, though, was how big the boost was.
According to data compiled by Rainmaker.gg, Tarkov’s viewership increased by a massive 455 percent—the highest of any game in the top 10—with 39 million hours watched, far more than the previous month.
The viewership surge saw it become the eighth-most-watched game on Twitch in that month, falling behind Overwatch 2, Fortnite, Warzone, VALORANT, League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and the number one title, GTA.
Pestily was the biggest contributor with around 8 million hours watched on his channel alone in Dec. 2022. LVNDMARK, however, wasn’t too far behind with 5.3 million hours watched. The next closest was stylishoob4 with 1.1 million, followed by fps_shaka with 931,000.
It was an incredible way for the difficult extraction shooter to end the year, and one the devs will be happy with, it actually had an impressive year overall too. Tarkov was the 10th-most-watched game on Twitch in 2022. People tuned in to watch it for 345 million hours, with a peak of 690,725 concurrent viewers and an average of 39,370 viewers.
The highest peak happened in December due to the wipe event, but January and June weren’t too far behind. If Battlestate can find a way to recreate the thrill a few more times across the year, there’s a good chance it could climb even higher in 2023.
