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Best Games to Stream on Twitch

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With thousands of games to stream on Twitch, it can be difficult to narrow down what you should play. This guide will cover 21 good options as well as give you strategies for looking at other games.

Finding the right video game to grow your channel can be a very difficult task for new streamers. Popular games like League of Legends and Call of Duty, while fun to play, are very difficult to grow in for new streamers due to the amount of competition.

In our experience, we’ve found indie games and fun party games are far more effective for increasing the number of viewers. This list outlines our top game picks for smaller content creators looking to build their channel, achieve Twitch affiliate, and grow their community.

This article will cover some of the best games you can stream on Twitch this year!

Best Games to Stream on Twitch in 2024

Albion Online logo

1. Albion Online

606
K Followers on Twitch
11
K Average viewers
141
Average channels
19
Viewer Ratio

Best Feature

  • Entertaining Gameplay
  • Global Map
  • Completely Free

Recommended For: Streamers with 0-20 concurrent viewers.

Albion Online is an open-world sandbox MMORPG that has built a massive player base and huge hype since releasing its new free-to-play model. This is such a great game choice for streamers primarily due to the full loot PVP and massive high-risk group fighting. Think of the early days of Runescape player killing in the wilderness except with massive 100 vs. 100 guild battles.

Want to drop fat damage and kill enemies or ride around on a mount, snatching up player gear from both sides? The choice is yours. This all-or-nothing environment makes for naturally fun content that is sure to keep your viewers entertained. Another advantage is the game is home to a very loyal community.

Once you find your niche be it PVE, PVP, or buying a plot of land for your bow crafting business, Albion has it all and is one of the best free-to-play games on the market. To learn more about the game, see the full trailer here

phasmophobia

2. Phasmophobia

1
M Followers on Twitch
1.2
K Average viewers
153
Average channels
5
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Great for generating donations
  • Spooky for Halloween Season

Recommended For: Streamers with 5-20 concurrent viewers

Phasmo has been booming since it hit the Steam store for early release back in September 2020. Over Halloween, many streamers and viewers bought into the hype, often teaming up with friends to explore haunted locations as a team of paranormal investigators. Where the game really shines is the jump scares.

If you are a Twitch affiliate, we highly recommend adding a bit donation alert with audio of a scream. Not only does this drive monetization, but it also creates fun moments the community will remember, and it is great for making clips that can later be shared on your socials.

minecraft steve running through a plains biome

3. Minecraft

53
Million Followers on Twitch
15.
K Average viewers
1.5
K Average Channels
25
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Community servers
  • Many game modes

Recommended For: Streamers with 10-50 concurrent viewers.

Since its release in 2009, Minecraft has become the top-selling game of all time. Gamers have become enthralled with the sandbox game. Minecraft is good for community interaction, where people can relax in the game’s nostalgia. 

Minecraft is one of the few games where viewers can play alongside streamers. Getting viewers playing and involved in projects generates huge vested interest.

Minecraft is one of the most versatile games to stream on Twitch, being available on the PC, Nintendo Switch, and many other devices (even your mobile phone)! It is the perfect game to show off your entertainment value.

dead by daylight

4. Dead by Daylight

13
Million Followers on Twitch
15
K Average Viewers
1
K Average channels
6
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Very interactive
  • Play with viewers

Recommended For: Streamers with 5-20 concurrent viewers.

Smaller niche game with a loyal fanbase. Suspense helps with retention as viewers want to see how the round ends. Will the streamer be gruesomely murdered?

You can also play the game with your viewers, as long as you remain the murderer searching them out (otherwise, they are able to track you down). This will let other viewers wonder if you will be able to find their community members.

If you have multiple people wanting to play with you, you can use a randomized generator or limit the players to subs.

old school runescape

5. Old School Runescape

902
K Followers on Twitch
5.6
K Average viewers
173
K Average channels
33
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Mature demographic
  • Vintage game

Recommended For: Streamers with 5-35 concurrent viewers.

Runescape was originally released in 2001 and was immediately embraced by an adoring fanbase. While a younger crowd still plays the current version of Runescape, many of the original players prefer playing and watching OSRS (Old School Runescape) for nostalgia.

You can hone many different niches and skills to create a niche for yourself and keep it interesting for your viewers. Player-owned houses and guilds also present the opportunity to hang out with your viewers.

The viewer of OSRS is an older fanbase, who are now typically between the ages of 25-35 years old. Many of them are employed and have a little extra cash they are willing to use on donations and subs. It’s also very common for community members to gift in-game items and currency.

animal crossing

6. Animal Crossing

2.8
Million Followers on Twitch
606
Average viewers
36
Average channels
7
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Calm and Serene
  • Anthropomorphic animals

Recommended For: Streamers with 10-30 concurrent viewers.

Animal Crossing is a new game and one of the biggest of the year. It has a huge following, and people want to see what others are up to. It is a very feel-good game that’s very inclusive. You don’t need a high-skill cap to do well and have fun.

Make sure to weigh in your thoughts about the peach tree vs. pear tree controversy. (Peach trees are far superior in every way).

ocarina of time

7. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

1.6
Million Followers on Twitch
533
Average viewers
29
Average channels
5
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Loyal viewerbase

Recommended For: Streamers with 0-20 concurrent viewers.

The first of the Zelda franchise that was released in 3D, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released in 1998 and has a huge amount of nostalgia surrounding it. All you need to do is visit any “Song of Storms” cover on YouTube to see how much people still love the game and story decades after it was released.

The story-telling aspect of Zelda games, in general, makes for a simple way to play through a game while still being able to interact with your viewers. Like OSRS, these viewers will likely be between 25-35 years old. Many will be there to “re-experience” the game through someone else’s eyes.

gwent the witcher card game

8. Gwent: The Witcher Card Game

755
K Followers on Twitch
165
Average viewers
4
Average channels
12
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Great viewer ratio

Recommended For: Streamers with 0-10 concurrent viewers.

Gwent: The Witcher Card Game generally has a great streamer-to-viewer ratio. Witcher 3 is one of the stand-out games of the last decade but sometimes suffers from being oversaturated with streamers. If you want to start building a following in the Witcher niche, Gwent is a mini-game with a following in its own right.

After you build up a bit of a following, you can play through the Witcher game with a Gwent focus and grow your Witcher following further. Gwent is also a great game for streamers who love to roleplay and cosplay on Twitch.

jackbox games

9. Jackbox

499
K Followers on Twitch
493
Average viewers
30
K Average channels
11
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Very interactive
  • Different game modes

Recommended For: Streamers with 5-20 concurrent viewers.

Jackbox Games are a group of party games that can be played by a group of people even if they are not in the same room. This means that streamers can play with their viewers.

Many of the games even have Twitch integration, allowing the streamer to play it without having to worry about Twitch trolls Jackbox streamers get a lot of organic traffic from viewers specifically searching the category. This means it’s a great game pick for building a few core viewers who might enjoy your content/ personality enough.

Jackbox is fast-paced and generates a huge amount of content, so while this creates pressure to keep up the pace, it also helps solve a common new streamer issue of dead airtime.

marbles on stream

10. Marbles on Stream

470
K Followers on Twitch
736
Average viewers
57
Average channels
23
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • All viewers can play along
  • Great for “Just Chatting” streams

Recommended For: Streamers with 10-40 concurrent viewers.

Great way to start a stream. Very popular for streamers to do 10-30 minutes of marbles while the stream picks up the regular viewers. Gives them something fun to play and mess around in. The game works well if played before a story-driven game that regular viewers won’t want to miss.

The time spent on marbles works as a buffer. Also really good if you need to take a toilet break or make some food. A game of marbles takes 2-3 minutes and gives viewers something to watch in the meantime. Optionally, you can set the game up to allow players to bet channel points from Streamlabs with each other on if a particular marble will come in first.

starcraft II

11. Starcraft II

2.5
Million Followers on Twitch
904
Average viewers
4
Average channels
9
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Devoted viewerbase

Recommended For: Streamers with 3-20 concurrent viewers.

StarCraft 2 is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, RTS games of all time. It has a huge viewer base even today and is a great pick if you are skilled at RTS. You can pull in viewers and retain them with impressive strategy and micro.

outward

12. Outward

48
K Followers on Twitch
12
Average viewers
2
Average channels
3
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Co-op gameplay

Recommended For: Streamers with 0-20 concurrent viewers.

Outward is an open-world RPG with a heavy focus on several survival elements, such as warmth, hunger, fatigue, and thirst.

Outward is a great pick for a new streamer primarily due to the immensely popular co-op play. Do you find it difficult to keep talking on stream? Invite an entertaining friend or a fellow streamer and jump into an open-world RPG with no level grind or gear restrictions.

The game’s hardcore mode also implements a system where there is a 20% chance it’s permanent on death, which requires restarting the game. This makes for a great few moments of intense tension when you fall in battle.

In my opinion, the anticipation is even worse than a game where permadeath is guaranteed and is sure to be an entertaining event for your viewers regardless of the outcome.

raft

13. Raft

1.2
Million Followers on Twitch
911
Average viewers
34
Average channels
4
Viewer ratio

Best Feature

  • Thriving community across Twitch, Reddit etc.
  • Fun to play

Recommended For: Streamers with 10-20 concurrent viewers.

Raft is a great game for new streamers still getting a feel for gaming while managing chat. Many games are difficult to balance entertaining your audience while successfully working your way through the content.

Raft is a great pace and offers plenty of time to get your viewers invested in the adventure by taking onboard their opinions when making decisions throughout the game. You can add additional stakes in regards to food, water, or even permadeath, and it has a 2-4 player co-op.

While appearing on the top 3 rows of the category requires a 10-viewer minimum, there is a thriving community who love the game, and every few months, new content is released, and the category blows up again. If you have already streamed it once, it is a really easy game to return to at a later date.

hearthstone coaching

14. Hearthstone

9.5
Million Followers on Twitch
19
K Average Viewers
76
Average Channels
20
Viewer Ratio

Best Feature

  • Easy to play and has an established fanbase

Recommended for Streamers with 10-20 concurrent viewers.

From the gaming giant Blizzard, Hearthstone is a virtual card-collecting game that builds upon the vast and complex lore of World of Warcraft. WoW fans who are also into card games will love Hearthstone, and it might also be one of the best games to stream for them.

Hearthstone may be a card game, but it incorporates tournaments, sometimes up to a global scale, where devoted followers of the game gather to watch their favorite master players.

Needless to say, it’s a game that could potentially attract fans of the game who are looking for streamers who play it. And if you impress your viewers with your card game strategy and quick thinking, it’s a surefire way to make them stay and follow you.

Moreover, it makes a fun game to play on stream, allowing you to engage with your audience. Brace yourself for the heap of comments and advice that will come your way, though.

Among us

15. Among Us

14
Million Followers on Twitch
92
Average Viewers
46
Average Channels
3
Viewer Ratio

Best Feature

  • Thrilling and fun gameplay with good audience engagement

Recommended For: Streamers with 10-20 concurrent viewers.

Among Us may have peaked when celebrity streamers joined in the fun after the pandemic struck, but it’s still as popular as ever. In fact, according to this statistic, the game has more than 500 million downloads and 3.8 million concurrent players worldwide. If those stats don’t convince you to try to play and stream this game with your friends, then its mechanics would.

The mechanics of Among Us is very simple: you and other survivors are in a spaceship, but some of you are imposters. These imposters are out to kill the others, so you must find them before that happens. And oh, you could be the imposter, too.

It doesn’t take a whodunnit fan to appreciate this game, as everyone could enjoy it. There’s a catch, though: it’s a co-op game. Thus, it’s best to play with friends. If you and your friends are good at making humorous commentary, this might be the best game to stream.

roblox

16. Roblox

8.5
Million Followers on Twitch
834
Average Viewers
486
Average Channels
2
Viewer Ratio

Best Feature

  • Large fan base and plenty of fun games to play

Roblox isn’t just for kids, although there’s no denying that a large part of its fanbase is the younger demographic. It’s an ultra-popular game that allows anyone not just to play games but to create one as well. Other users can also play the game you created. It’s perhaps one of the reasons why Roblox is popular.

With a wide variety of games that Roblox has, you won’t run out of content easily. Moreover, if you’re the creative type who loves to dabble in game creation yourself, you can also stream while creating a game and providing some ideas and tutorials for other game developers.

But because the demographic is younger, you might find more audience for this game on YouTube instead of Twitch since the latter doesn’t allow users below 13 years old. Don’t mistake, though: Roblox still has a lot of adult fans, and its number of viewers speaks for itself.

grounded

17. Grounded

232
K Followers on Twitch
151
Average Viewers
49
Average Channels
2
Viewer Ratio

Best Feature

  • Great graphics and interesting concept

What if you shrunk to the size of an ant? This is the main premise of Obsidian Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios’s game survival game, Grounded. A relatively new game released just in 2022, it has been on early access since 2020.

Because a lot of hype was around it, Grounded exploded in popularity when it was released and, according to its trailer, has amassed 10 million players in a short period of time.

The website Twitchstrike lists this game as one of the must-stream games as of June 2023. Crafting, fighting enemies, and building a base are just some of the best features of this game. If you’re a streamer who specializes in looking for a new indie game to stream with a great concept, this one’s for you.

Valheim

18. Valheim

Best Feature

406
K Followers on Twitch
1.9
K Average Viewers
199
Average Channels
2
Viewer Ratio

Best Feature

  • Brutal survival game making the gameplay more intense and thrilling

Recommended For: Streamers with 5-35 concurrent viewers.

Sandbox and survival games are big on streaming, and Valheim is no exception. However, Valheim takes it up a notch, as it is more brutal than other popular games of the same genre. Set in a world based on Norse myth, this game can be played with 1 to 10 people, so if you prefer to play it solo, there’s no stopping you.

Like Grounded above, Valheim is one of the top games recommended by aggregator website Twitchstrike that streamers should play live. Amaze your viewer with the use of your wits and skills in surviving the treacherous world. Pair it with either a humorous or insightful commentary, and you’re golden.

Apex legends

19. Apex Legends

19
Million Followers on Twitch
74
K Average Viewers
3.2
K Average Channels
5
Viewer Ratio

Best Feature

  • Very popular game with a large fanbase

Recommended For: Streamers with 50-350 concurrent viewers.

Apex Legends took the world by storm when it was released in 2019. A few years later, it’s still one of the most played games on stream, with an average player count of 228,724 as of May 2023, according to this statistic. Needless to say, many of its fans still watch Apex Legends streams, whether to get tips on play style or just for the sheer enjoyment of it.

It may be a popular game, with many streamers featuring it on their broadcast, making some people feel that getting into the field may make it hard for them to stand out. However, if you have confidence on your play style or simply just enjoy the game, why not join the fun? Fans love to watch streams of shooter games like Apex Legends because it’s fun, thrilling, and exciting.

Rainbow 6

20. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege

18
Million Followers on Twitch
7.6
K Average Viewers
839
Average Channels
3
Viewer Ratio

Best Feature

  • Team game with the possibility of playing with other streamers or audience

Recommended For: Streamers with 15-25 concurrent viewers.

Shooter games are popular in the streaming community because of the intensity and thrill it brings to the viewers. If this is your forte, you should try streaming Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege.

In this 5v5 tactical shooter game, players fight in close quarters using advanced weapons and gadgets. Both players and viewers will be on the edge of their seats while watching the game play out.

The downside to it, though, is that because it’s a team game, you may need to invite friends or team up with strangers to play the game. However, the advantage is that because it’s a team game, you can invite a viewer to play with you on your next broadcast. This makes for a more engaging and fun stream.

stardew valley

21. Stardew Valley

1.5
Million Followers on Twitch
1.3
K Average Viewers
92
Average Channels
5
Viewer Ratio

Best Features

  • Calm, fun, and cozy story

Recommended For: Streamers with 10-30 concurrent viewers.

Stardew Valley is a game that has won the hearts of many. You play the role of a grandchild of a farmer who inherits his farm plot in Stardew Valley. Farm your land, build new structures, and start relationships with NPCs with this fun and cozy game. Every NPC (particularly the marriageable ones) has its own stories, so pay attention to them as you play.

However, you need to be a storyteller who is good at making commentaries if you decide to stream this game. If you have a talent for making people laugh with your jokes and comments, then this one might be for you.

How to Find Additional Games Stream on Twitch

You can use TwitchStrike to find out what games are currently trending in your current hour. Here is how it works:

  1. Step 1

    What to stream

    Visit the site’s section about “What to stream” and input the number of average viewers you have coming to your stream. New games will be generated depending on your viewer count to try to give you the maximum amount of eyes that will see your stream. (Please remember that the widget is currently in BETA and may experience issues. It is good to follow through with your own research after the initial browse).

  2. Step 2

    Browse the list of games, taking note of the number of channels currently streaming, the average viewer count, and the percentage of viewers that the top 5% of that game’s category owns. 

  3. Step 3

    Double-check current trends on Twitch, as TwitchStrike isn’t always accurate and doesn’t always update accordingly.

  4. Step 4

    Set up your stream.

Play Games That You Enjoy

It’s obvious, but you won’t be able to enjoy streaming, much less rake in viewers, if you don’t enjoy the game you’re playing. If people see that you are clearly enjoying yourself regardless of the numbers on your screen or the frequency of chats, they will also enjoy watching your stream.

However, it might be nice to try games you haven’t played or you’re not used to playing. If they’re quite the viewer magnet and you’re curious about playing it, why not do so? Who knows, this might be how your fanbase will skyrocket.

Playing Most Watched Games May Hurt Organic Growth

Unless you already have a large following or another way to attract viewers to your channel, streaming games like Grand Theft Auto V or Fortnite may make it nearly impossible to grow. Popular titles do bring in the most viewers, but they are also the most streamed games – often with tens of thousands of people competing with you.

Remember that Twitch has a hierarchal search system in that they will always show potential viewers the most popular streamers first.

Instead, look for a battle royale game (or whichever genre you choose) that isn’t one of the top-streamed games. You will have a much better chance of being discovered and growing your community.

About the Author

Chris

Chris is a marketing major with a strong background in small business and influencer branding. He applies his knowledge of content and promotional strategies to design actionable advice for new and intermediate streamers. When he’s not busy crunching analytics, he can be found in the salt pits of League of Legends.

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