World's Most-Played Game Confirmed In New Study, With 10.4 Million Years Collective Playtime

Just in case you needed a reminder that Fortnite is a global behemoth that will most likely outlive us all, new data reveals that gamers all around the world have put a collective playtime of 10.4 million years into the Epic-developed battle royale. That's roughly 50 times longer than humans (as we know them) have existed on this planet, which is... a sobering statistic.

In fact, the second most-played game in the world doesn't even come close to matching the might of Fortnite. World Of Warcraft - once the most popular game on the face of the planet - takes silver with 5.7 million years. It's worth noting that Fortnite came out some 13 years after World Of Warcraft, and boasts nearly twice the fantasy MMO's playtime. Scary stuff.

Overwatch comes in third with 1.5 million collective years under its best, while Grand Theft Auto V trails a distant fourth place with just under 730k. I was expecting an awful lot more from Rockstar's open-world crime sim, I have to say.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt reminds us all that single-player games aren't dead just yet, coming in fifth with 342k. CD Projekt RED's classic RPG is followed up by 2019's Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare and free-to-play battle royale Warzone. Clearly Activision has a long way to go if it wants to take that Fortnite crown.

The last four games in the top ten are Fallout 4 (115k), Assassin's Creed Odyssey (90k), Rocket League (47k), and FIFA 20 (11k).

I'm sure you won't be surprised to learn that Fortnite is also the most-streamed game on Twitch by a long old way. With 1289 million hours viewed, it's the game of the platform. That's almost double the 712 million earned by League Of Legends, which takes the second most-viewed spot.

What does this tell us, then? Mostly, that the people who love to harp on about Fortnite being a dead game are dead wrong. I don't play it myself, but you have to respect anything that can pull in those kind of numbers.