Epic Games' juggernaut battle royale Fortnite led the pack of which games were being discussed the most on Twitter in 2018. However in 2019 it was usurped by the mobile role-playing game Fate/Grand Order, according to metrics released by the social media company Tuesday.
Fate/Grand Order is a free-to-play, turn-based character collecting game from Delightworks first released in 2015 that spins off the Fate multimedia empire. The series began as a visual novel in 2004 called Fate/stay night by developer Type-Moon, and the mobile title largely keeps up its predecessor's visual novel roots in presentation. According to the Twitter's blog post, it made up the largest percentage of over 1.2 billion Tweets made about gaming throughout 2019.
The fact that Fate/Grand Order took over Fortnite's spot at the top of the hill is somewhat surprising given the battle royale's continual dominance of streaming sites like Twitch, and given it was the highest-grossing video game in 2019. However, the rest of Twitter Gaming's "Most Talked About Games" list is also largely more diverse than last year, when Nintendo franchises and sports games took a majority of spots.
The continual presence of Super Smash Bros. makes sense given its waves of DLC released throughout 2019 (with rumors abound that the next new fighter will be revealed soon). As does the high placement of Square Enix's Final Fantasy franchise, which is riding off the imminent release of a Final Fantasy VII remake.
But in general mobile games were the kings of Twitter considering Mixi's puzzle-centric physics game Monster Strike, HappyElements' anime card collecting game Ensemble Stars!, and Cygames' role-playing game Granblue Fantasy joined Fate/Grand Order on the list. It also includes NetEase's asymmetric horror game Identity V, which crossed over with Persona 5 in July.
Twitter's released metrics discuss other gaming trends from 2019. For instance, the top three countries producing Tweets about games were Japan, the United States, and South Korea; E3 and the League of Legends World Championships were the most discussed events; and Tyler "Ninja" Blevins was the most talked about "Gaming Personality," likely in-part due to his widely publicized shift from Twitch to Microsoft's streaming platform Mixer.
It's impossible to know what Twitter's "Most Talked About Games" will look like by the end of 2020, but it will be interesting to watch and see whether the conversation continues to be dominated by mobile games like Fate/Grand Order going forward, or if Fortnite will reclaim its crown.