Most Watched Esports Battle Royale 2022

Battle royale games are one of the most popular genres in the video games industry. Millions of people spend time in such titles every day, and its esports scenes became one of the biggest in the world. So we at Esports Charts, collected all the necessary stats to bring you the 5 most-watched esports games of the genre in 2022.

Disclaimer. The ranking is based on statistics of esports tournaments in the respective games. Ordinary live broadcast stats for the respective games are not taken into account.

5th place — PUBG: Battlegrounds

PUBG: Battlegrounds is the fifth most-watched esports game in the battle royale genre. In 2022, tournaments on it collected a little less than 30 million hours of viewing. The online peak was recorded at PUBG Nations Cup 2022: the comeback tournament of the series peaked at over 239K viewers.

Interestingly, the entire esports scene of PUBG: Battlegrounds amassed almost the same number of total Hours Watched as tournaments held in Battlegrounds Mobile India, the now-banned (from August 2022) adaptation of PUBG Mobile for the Indian market.

4th place — Fortnite

Fortnite was released in 2017, and since then has become a staple in the battle royale genre. With Zero Build, Fortnite new game mode, being introduced in March of this year, the competitive scene of the game gained a new life. A lot of players from other battle royales switched to Fortnite, and some of the stars that had left the game, such as Tfue, made a comeback.

The two most popular Fortnite events of the year, are both Fortnite Zero Build tournaments. However, classic Fortnite events were also very popular. In 2022, there were five tournaments with at least $1 million in prize money. These tournaments attracted many pro players, and reached a wide audience.

Compared to 2021, Fortnite’s total HW became several times, and its biggest tournament had 557K PV. This peak viewership was reached in the Twitch Rivals Creator Series: North America Kick-off, ft. Fortnite Zero Build. It had some of the most popular content creators in the region compete against each other. 2022 was a great year for the Fortnite competitive scene. They managed to attract a lot of new viewers, and make the game feel fresh with the addition of Zero Build. If they can replicate that success in 2023, then we might see them even higher on this list next year.

3rd place — Free Fire

Free Fire continues to have one of the most popular battle royale esports scenes. The Free Fire World Series 2022 Sentosa, achieved great viewership numbers, with 1.4 million Peak Viewers. The LBFF continues to be the game's most popular league, as the game has millions of players in Brazil. However, the title is also immensely popular in Asia.

Despite tournaments with big prize pools, and two world series events that achieved good viewership results, Free Fire still lost viewers. In 2022, the game HW decreased by almost 50%, and it dropped one place on this list, being overtaken by Apex Legends. Despite that, the 1.4 million PV they reached, is the most of all the games on this list, by a substantial margin.

2nd place — Apex Legends

The Apex Legends esports scene had a breakthrough year. Apex Legends received some good patches, which attracted plenty of new players to the title. A lot of streamers were also playing the game regularly, which certainly helped in its growth. It finally overtook Fortnite, and is arguably the most popular battle royale in the West.
Apex Legends Global Series was never as popular as this year. The battle royale official league attracted the interest of many viewers, and the game skill cap is at an all-time high. It was also able to increase its presence in the APAC region, gaining many new players and viewers from the region. Plenty of third-party tournaments happened throughout the year, which meant viewers could always watch competitive Apex Legends being played.

The ALGS: 2022 Split 2 Playoffs was the most popular tournament of the year, with round seven of the finals reaching 676K viewers. Apex Legends was watched for 61 million hours in 2022, an the astonishing twofold increase compared to 2021.

1st place — PUBG Mobile

PUBG Mobile continues to be the most popular battle royale esports game in the globe. PUBG Mobile was the only game to surpass the 100 million HW mark, with viewers from all around the world watching PUBG Mobile events for 115 million hours.

PUBG Mobile top 5 tournaments of this year, have all more than 7 million Hours Watched. PMGC 2022, which is still ongoing, has an astonishing 20.9 million Hours Watched. However, the game’s peak viewership was achieved in the 31st Southeast Asian Games PUBG Mobile, with 903K simultaneous viewers. Almost all the top Asian esports organizations have a PUBG Mobile squad, and Western teams are following in their footsteps.