Despite launching over eight years and two console generations ago, Rockstar's behemoth Grand Theft Auto 5 managed to top the chart and claim the title of the most-watched game on Twitch, 2021. Collectively, people watched streamers play GTA 5 for a whopping 3.1 billion combined hours this year.
GTA 5 is one of the most popular pieces of media of all time - in terms of pure revenue, it's the most successful ever, so it's no surprise people are still regularly watching others play it. Unlike its predecessor, GTA 4, GTA 5 saw no single-player DLC, with Rockstar instead focussing on GTA Online.
These figures come courtesy of Streamelements, who report that the only category on Twitch to beat out GTA 5 was 'Just Chatting'. The open-world game also beat out League of Legends, which took gaming's second place at 1.8 billion total hours watched.
Despite being so old, Rockstar has done a lot to keep GTA 5 and GTA Online relevant to people. The game has been re-released on Xbox One and PS4, and has been confirmed for an Xbox Series X and PS5 launch in March 2022. On top of being ported to new consoles, frequent updates to GTA Online mean there's always something for fans to come back for.
Most recently, Rockstar just launched the online DLC The Contract, starring Franklin Clinton from the single-player, as well as featuring legendary hip hop artist Dr Dre. You can even play through the new content solo if you're not one for teamwork.
Streamelements also revealed that for the second year in a row, xQc was the most-watched streamer by a significant margin, hitting almost 300 million hours watched. Second place was loud_coringa at just under 200 million.
Meanwhile, of the top 100 streamers, only two were women, proving that they aren't stealing views from anyone. Amouranth came in at number 33, higher than any other woman on the platform. She recently partnered with Playboy to launch a competitor to OnlyFans.