Twitch king xQc breaks viewership record thanks to Overwatch 2 beta

Andrew Amos
xQc looking at Winston from overwatch 2

Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel isn’t called the King of Twitch lightly, and on Overwatch 2’s beta release he showed why. The former pro managed to juice more than 300,000 peak viewers to break his personal record, all thanks to the Blizzard shooter’s test release.

xQc is no stranger to big Twitch audiences. The star streamer hauls in nearly 100,000 average viewers every time he clicks go live on the Amazon-owned platform, and there’s hardly a day (even hour) where he’s not at the top of the analytics.

However, April 27 was a special occasion for xQc. With Overwatch 2’s beta finally out and codes on offer via drops, hundreds of thousands tuned in to watch the former pro dust off the cobwebs.

The stream was so popular that xQc, six years into his Twitch career, broke the 300,000 viewer barrier and set a new record for himself. He capped out at 312,158 viewers, according to Twitch Tracker, nearly 40,000 more than his previous peak set earlier in April 2022 of 278,176.

xQc-subathon-details

The last time xQc had an audience of more than 200,000 viewers at once was way back in April 2020 during Valorant’s launch, also spurred on by the tantalizing drops on offer.

It looked like the juicer was having a great time too, playing customs with big names like fellow streaming stars Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys and Lirik to former Overwatch pros Seagull and Surefour.

xQc was also left pretty impressed by some of the new content, including the reworked Bastion which he compared to “a paper shredder” of damage.

Overwatch 2 characters
It was like the good old days with xQc playing Overwatch on Twitch.

Overwatch itself also experienced an unprecedented boom off the back of the sequel’s beta launch on Twitch. The title peaked just shy of 1.5 million viewers, more than three times its previous peak of 460,000.

With its full launch still yet to come, there’s potential for the Overwatch community to revive on Twitch if it all goes smoothly, and xQc is sure to be at the forefront of it.

About The Author

Hailing from Perth, Andrew was formerly Dexerto's Australian Managing Editor. They love telling stories across all games and esports, but they have a soft spot for League of Legends and Rainbow Six. Oh, and they're also fascinated by the rise of VTubers.