Highguard’s Twitch viewership plummets as top streamers move on

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Although many have been watching the number of Highguard players, a look at Twitch shows a worrying trend: fewer people are watching the game, and well-known streamers are switching to other games.

Highguard’s launch wasn’t easy. Appearing last at The Game Awards 2025 created high expectations, and the lack of news beforehand worried many people.

The developers hoped the game’s quality would be obvious, and although we liked its original idea, our first look showed it still needed some improvement.

Now that the game has been released and we have actual numbers, it’s clear there are some issues. Player numbers have been falling steadily since the game first launched. Even more concerning, viewership on Twitch has dropped by a huge 98% in just a few days.

Highguard’s Twitch viewership in freefall

When it launched on January 26, 2026, Highguard quickly became one of the most popular games on Twitch, the leading live streaming platform.

The new free-to-play raid shooter quickly became popular, reaching a peak of over 382,000 viewers on its first day, according to SullyGnome. Many top streamers, including shroud and Ninja, were among the first to try it out and share their experiences.

In the days following, however, the game has not been able to maintain an audience on Twitch.

The stream reached its highest viewership the next day with 81,308 viewers. However, by January 28th, that number had dropped to 24,245. As of January 29th, viewership continued to decline, peaking at 7,071 at the time this was written.

Twitch Drops are currently available for the game Highguard, but they don’t seem to be significantly extending how long people play it.

Okay, so I was checking the viewer numbers, and it’s kinda crazy – Highguard isn’t pulling in as many people as the original Call of Duty from way back in 2003! Seriously, even Ratchet & Clank from 2002 has more viewers. It’s getting beat by everything – people just chilling with sleeping streams, artists doing their thing, and even Apex Legends, which had devs working on it ages ago. It’s a bit rough, honestly.

Popular streamers like Shroud, Summit1G, TimTheTatman, and LIRIK were among the most-watched Highguard streamers. However, out of the top ten, only Shroud and Summit1G played for over six hours in total, and they were the only ones who came back to stream the game more than once.

Most streamers have quickly moved on, and it’s unclear if they’ll come back anytime soon. While some, like shroud, have complimented the game’s core mechanics, they’ve also highlighted several significant issues that need to be addressed quickly to maintain player interest.

Wildlight Entertainment developers have a plan for the first year, and they intend to release new content regularly.

With fresh content like new Vanguards and the introduction of Ranked Mode coming soon, the big question is whether it will bring viewers back to Twitch. We’ll have to wait and see.

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2026-01-29 08:19