The first quarter of 2025 saw major esports titles host international events, as well as massively popular regional circuits. Across the entire industry, millions and millions of viewers tuned into their favourite title, with numerous games reaching close to the multi-millions. Powered by our extensive viewership database, Esports Charts is proud to present both the most popular games and tournaments of Q1 2025 by peak concurrent viewers.
In first place of esports titles for early 2025 was League of Legends. The global MOBA phenomenon reached over 1.9M Peak Viewers (PV) for the LCK Cup 2025, the opening regional event for the Korean circuit this year. While the game also hosted its inaugural First Stand 2025 in Q1, the year-opening international event suffered from low viewership and was ultimately overshadowed by the LCK. Closely following behind League of Legends was another MOBA title that dominates the mobile gaming sphere.
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang was the second-most popular game of Q1 2025, having reached 1.84M Peak Viewers for the opening weeks of the MPL Indonesia Season 15. While other esports scenes have already hosted major events in 2025, MLBB has been off to a slower start, and is just beginning to host matches. Late in the quarter, the opening weeks of the MPL Indonesia kicked things off to a raucous roar of fan support, almost surmounting the LCK Cup. As the year continues and international MLBB events begin to take place, this game could potentially contest for the top spot.
Outside of MOBA titles, shooters Valorant and Counter-Strike were in close contest for the quarter. Valorant came out slightly ahead thanks to the grand final of the VCT 2025: Masters Bangkok, which featured Korea’s T1 facing the North American G2 Esports squad. While a strong result, Masters Bangkok struggled to engage Brazilian and European audiences, which previously have fuelled the game’s strongest peaks.
Compared to Valorant’s official international event, Counter-Strike 2 has only seen third-party events held during the first quarter. While many CS2 tournaments reached hundreds of thousands of viewers, only the record-breaking IEM Katowice 2025 reached over a million viewers. The tournament was the most popular IEM Katowice ever at 1.3M PV, and also the first in the series to break 1M PV since 2022. The competition between the historic franchise of Counter-Strike and newcomer Valorant remains strong; later this year, comparing a Counter-Strike Major to the Valorant Champions 2025 will provide a clean comparison point for the games.
Lastly, Arena of Valor managed to take the final spot of our top five ranking thanks to a strong result at the Arena of Glory Spring 2025. The Arena of Glory is the Vietnamese pro circuit for Arean of Valor, a MOBA title and international adaptation of China’s Honor of Kings. The Vietnamese circuit reached this strong peak viewership when its two most popular teams came together during the group stage: Saigon Phantom and Team Flash. The Vietnamese viewership for the Arena of Glory has made it one of the strongest Asian esports circuits in the world.
While Arena of Valor did manage to secure a strong result at the Vietnamese circuit, it still fell significantly behind the other top titles. The other top four esports games of the quarter hosted numerous events each, with Counter-Strike seeing almost one hundred total tournaments for Q1 2025, conversely, Arena of Valor hosted only three. Leading the way for the top esports tournaments for the quarter are the events we have already covered: the top performers for each game.
Outside the events we have already explored, the Snapdragon Pro Series Season 6 APAC – Challenge Finals was the first major third-party tournament for Southeast Asia. The international event managed to eclipse a million viewers during its playoff matches, largely appealing to Indonesian and Filipino audiences. Ultimately, this third-party MLBB event outperformed the inaugural edition of League of Legends’ new international event, the First Stand 2025.
Counter-Strike 2, which hosted almost 100 individual tournaments this quarter, made up a significant portion of the bottom half of our ranking. Third-party events from both BLAST and ESL were popular throughout the early months of 2025, with the BLAST Open Spring 2025 leading the way at over 850,000 PV. While Valorant reached a higher singular peak than CS2 in Q1 2025, Counter-Strike’s calendar is populated with many more significant events to generate watch time.
Esports Charts will be presenting many other reports and results of Q1 2025 in the coming weeks. From overall rankings like top games and co-streamers, all the way down in detail to the top specific streams and top streamers of each region. Keep an eye on our newsletter and our blog for the newest quarterly report, presenting a first-look into the 2025 esports scene.
