Half-Life: Alyx beat out major titles like Fortnite and League of Legends in concurrent Twitch viewers on the game’s launch day.

Half-Life: Alyx became one of gaming’s most watched titles on Twitch yesterday. With 300K peak concurrent viewers (according to SteamDB data) the game lead the day’s peak concurrent viewers over major games like the recently released Doom Eternal (26K peak), perennial titles like Fortnite (118K peak) and League of Legends (180K peak), and just about tied the latest battle royale craze, Call of Duty: Warzone (296K peak).

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Of course, one could expect that the launch-day viewership of a major game would beat out titles which have been out for a while now, but the launch-day viewership for Half-Life: Alyx is an order of magnitude beyond what’s been seen for any other VR game to date. The huge number very likely speaks to the fact that there’s probably far more people who want to play the game compared to those who can play the game considering the notoriety of the Half-Life franchise compared to the relatively small VR install base.

As a campaign title, Half-Life: Alyx isn’t likely to see the such high ongoing viewership of the aforementioned streaming juggernauts, but we’ll be interested to see if its 300K concurrent viewer launch-day peak is as high as the game will reach, or it it’ll go even higher as we approach the first post-launch weekend (when viewership tends to be at its highest).

As far as players go, Half-Life: Alyx also crushed existed records for peak concurrent players among VR games on Steam.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."

  • :3

  • Ace of Spades

    Is there a list of AAA VR Games?
    1) Half Life Alyx
    2) The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
    ???
    ???
    ???
    ???
    ???
    Throw some names

    • Kyokushin

      3) Doom VFR
      4) NO Mans SKY
      5) Beat Saber
      6) Boneworks
      7) Elite Dangerous
      8) Serious Sam VR
      9) Skyrim VR
      10) Everspace

      • I was going to give you props up until you put Bear Saber on that list. That game is a potato. And no Moss??? Why haven’t more people tried The Forest? And where is Super Hot?!

      • humansteak

        Lone Echo is what you’re looking for. check out the competitive MP.

        Onward and Pavlov are good shooters. (Onward is to Pavlov what Arma is to CS:GO kind of if that makes sense.)

      • david vincent

        Borderland 2 VR is only a VR port but if you like shooting at things, it’s one of the best and biggest.

    • RockstarRepublic

      No Mans Sky, easily. Skyrim and Fallout VR are both very good VR games despite being “VR Ports”.

    • Jonathan Winters III

      Upcoming Medal of Honor VR, Wolfenstein VR …

    • Anonymous

      Asgard’s Wrath
      Stormland

      i don’t care what Facebook haters believe, but both of these are doutlessly AAA quality and worthy of some credit, period.

    • sfmike

      You have to include Asgard’s Wrath as a top AAA VR title and experience.

    • Leon Jimenez

      Lone Echo

  • I think I’m about half way through and it’s very, very pretty. It’s also… kinda linear. Like extremely. It’s an old-skool game, through and through. You are pushed down a fixed path, with some occasional tiny chances to explore, for some extra stuff. That’s it. Like a cow being lead down a chute, but the chud you chew is bullets.

    This sort of fixed game does allow for great cinematic and will always make for the best visuals. It’s a great genre of gameplay if you want to show off hardware. But over the last 10 years we’ve been spoiled on games that offer choice, creativity, exploration, and replayability. If you’ve seen the game once, you’ve seen it all.

    There’s very little to do beyond the fixed experience. And the experience is humorous, exciting, and beautiful. But it’s also dated. This is a classic 2000’s shooter. It’s all fixed bullet dioramas and showpieces. It’s ONE clever series of dialogs with no trees, no choice, no different outcomes. You aren’t likely to ever see quite as lovely of a game anytime soon, and it runs SO WELL. But what you see if what you get.

    And it’s not cheap. $60 and 48GB’s of downloads!! I haven’t had to wait HOURS for a game to download in years. No Man’s Sky is 10GB’s and can be played for hundreds of hours. I think I’ll be done with Alyx in one more game session. I’m not saying it’s not worth it… but be aware that you’re paying for a premium meal at a fancy restaurant. Enjoy it while you can, because it’s small, costly, and short lived.

    • impurekind

      Yeah, linearity was always a problem with the Half-Life games. Well, it’s more of an issue in 2 than 1 imo, and it’s the same with Alyx now too. That’s not how all old school fps were though, as games like Doom 1/2, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, GoldenEye and Halo: CE, as a few examples, all offered far more freedom to explore around in the levels and challenge certain areas in different orders or even miss out some sections entirely. It’s why I’ve always preferred those games over Half-Life on the whole, as good as the Half-Life games are in their own way. But, for a Half-Life game, Alyx is very good, and even up there with 2, although not quite as amazing as 1 was imo.

    • Yes, in fact it is a game for Millenials… most people younger than me were not that hyped for Alyx. I also saw some issues into the game. But as you said, it’s anyway an amazing game

  • impurekind

    Good stuff, and deserved.

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  • I’ve streamed it on my Youtube channel… the first day I got many viewers, the last day far fewer, so I guess that the number will slow down with time… because once you’ve seen all the game, there is nothing else to watch again