EGX Rezzed
Gamers gather at EGX Rezzed. Gamer Network

With just a few days to go before 2022 ends, "Valorant" is set to become the most successful shooting game on the Twitch streaming platform this year. In fact, Riot Games' first-person shooter is set to soundly beat Valve's "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive," the second-most popular shooting game on the platform.

According to data from Stream Charts, "Valorant" viewership reached a massive 1.126 billion total hours watched from January to December 18, 2022, DOT Esports reported. This figure is almost double that of the second-most popular shooting game on Twitch, "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive," developed by Valve. For comparison, "CS:GO" had had almost 685 million total hours watched during the same period.

However, "CS:GO" still retains the title of highest peak viewership of all shooting games with 1.6 million viewers. The popular shooter from Epic Games, "Fortnite," beat out "Valorant" to end with the second-highest peak viewership.

Two of the most watched streams on Twitch are from "CS:GO" and "Valorant," with Brazilian streamer Gaules leading the pack with over 126 million cumulative hours watched. With 69 million total hours watched, former professional "CS:GO" player and current "Valorant" content creator Tark Celik is in the second position.

While content producers like Tarik streamed his rated matches to their audience, he also participated in the competitive VCT circuit and co-streamed the tournament at various points throughout the year, which increased viewership overall.

Since its debut two years ago, "Valorant" has gained momentum, with content creation being regarded as being profitable in comparison to other shooting games. Competitively, "Valorant" has yet to surpass "CS:GO," one of the all-time most watched esports, in terms of peak viewership.

For the VCT 2023 season, "Valorant" will return next year along with the brand-new content that Riot will be releasing. The game is a free-to-play first-person tactical hero shooter released in 2020 for Windows.