The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

We picked up Breath of the Wild in 2017, right when Nintendo's magic was at peak potency. The Switch had just launched, and we were glued to Hyrule for 93 hours straight. The game's massive open world hit different in those early days—exploration felt genuinely dangerous when you could wander anywhere and die to a random enemy camp. We came back to it in 2023, nearly six years later, and it held up surprisingly well. That gap between 2017 and 2023 says everything about how the house moved through games in the streaming years. Peak viewership hit 542 as chat watched us struggle with puzzle shrines and laugh at Link's ragdoll physics. The streams captured both the initial wonder and the long-haul appeal of a game that refused to force a linear path.

Our time with Breath of the Wild landed solid middle-of-the-pack numbers for a Nintendo title. Ninety-three and a half hours streamed, with peak viewers hitting 542 during the 2017 launch window. The average viewers hovered around 329—respectable for a single-player adventure that demanded focus rather than spectacle. Hours watched ticked up to over 31,000, which meant people genuinely stuck around to see what we'd discover next. Only 17 followers gained, which tracks with a game that's less about community moments and more about personal exploration.