Update - 15/2/2019: During the last three days, Apex Legends has been watched for over three times as many hours as rival free-to-play battle royale title Fortnite on streaming platform Twitch. 

That's going off data from SullyGnome, which says that EA and Respawn's latest release has been watched for 3.1 times as many hours as Fortnite - 19,806,033 hours versus 6,384,925 for Epic's release.

To give an idea of Apex Legends' rise, looking at the last seven days on Twitch, that title was watched for 2.5 times as many hours, while a glance at the last, um, fortnight shows that users spent 1.6 more hours watching Respawn's new release than Fortnite. That last stat is particularly impressive given that Apex Legends wasn't even out for three of the last 14 days. 

That Apex Legends is popular on Twitch isn't all too surprising. The game's marketing campaign consisted largely of EA and Respawn getting some of the biggest streamers in the world playing their take on battle royale. It is worth noting that a portion of the audience won't necessarily be there for the game, instead tuning in for the personality playing it, but that's just a pedantic nuance as it doesn't matter - they are watching the game. 

Couple the streamer-centric marketing campaign with a surprise release and people will be looking to get a feel for the game will likely head to Twitch to give it a look. 

Original story - 13/2/2019:  EA and Respawn's newly released Apex Legends has already garnered a huge audience in the almost ten days it has been on shelves, but thousands are tuning in to watch the game on Twitch.

Streaming analytics platform SullyGnome has Apex Legends as being watched for 52,552,500 hours on Twitch alone since its launch on February 4th.

The game is No.1 when checking out the most watched games over the last 14 days - the option selected to get a lifetime figure for the title - which is a particularly impressive feat given that Apex Legends wasn't even out for four of those days.

By contrast, Fortnite was watched for 42.3m hours in the last two weeks on Twitch.

Looking at Twitch data for the last seven days, Apex Legends has a much higher lead on Fortnite. EA and Respawn's battle royale title has been watched for 44,568,550 hours in the last week - almost three times Fortnite's 18m hours.

Measuring just the last three days and a similar ratio is apparent with Apex Legends being viewed for 21.8m hours compared to Fortnite's 8.3m.

Research from esports and streaming analytics firm Stream Hatchet - as reported by our sibling site InfluencerUpdate.biz - has the free-to-play battle royale game as the most watched title on Twitch, YouTube Gaming and Facebook during its first week in the wild, between February 4th and 11th.

The data company claims that Apex Legends was watched for 39,649,364 hours in just seven days. In doing so, the title deposed Fortnite, pushing Epic's title to third place behind League of Legends. For context, this is the first time that Epic's free-to-play battle royale game hasn't been in the top spot since this chart started running in September 2018. 

Meanwhile, at the time of writing, TwitchMetrics.net reports that 173,956 people are watching Apex Legends Twitch streams across 5,716 channels. That's slightly below the average viewer figure that the platform cites - 262,321, with a peak viewership of 596,676.

Some of the big name names in battle royale streaming - such as Shroud and Dr DisRespect - have started playing Apex Legends so no doubt these figures are only going to grow.  

25m people played Apex Legends in its first week in the wild, according to the boss of developer Respawn Vince Zampella.