Has Fortnite made Ninja relevant again? 

Ninja and Fortnite are nearly synonymous. One really struggles to think about the game without the player and vice versa. Ninja initially rose to prominence alongside the popular Battle Royale. Twitch Tracker reports that Ninja began streaming in January 2017, but his numbers didn't take off until he began streaming Fortnite.

After that, he was on a steady trajectory, with his channel growing all the time. Then, inexplicably, Ninja stopped playing the game. He didn't entirely quit like other players have (Tfue, for example, though he has also returned to the game), but it was clear that his gaming priorities were elsewhere.

In November, Ninja appeared to be slowly making a return to the game. His numbers were increasing as well, indicating that there might be a correlation.

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Is Fortnite making Ninja a more popular streamer?

In July 2021, Ninja streamed Fortnite for just six out of 89 possible hours. He saw a 50% decrease in viewership, which is arguably not a coincidence. Despite his numbers being better than those of most streamers, they were definitely faltering.

On his YouTube channel, players will now almost exclusively find Fortnite videos. Ninja's last 66 videos were about the game.

Obviously, Ninja knows his own video statistics more than anyone, which may be what's driving the recent output. People want to see Ninja playing the popular battle royale that helped give his career life, and they're less interested in seeing him play other titles like PUBG or Valorant.

On Twitch Tracker, Ninja's stats look good. Overall, his follower count continues to rise with his streaming hour count. The count did take a dip briefly, but now that he's back to Fortnite, it seems to be steadily rising again.

Ninja's stats (Image via Twitch Tracker)

Since September of last year, Ninja has only had one month where he saw a drop in viewers, and it was only a drop of less than 3,000. All other months have seen improvement.

His follower count continues to rise as he has gained 552,000 followers since returning to the game. In fact, in the two months directly following his "return," he had an increase in follower count of 154,000 and 191,000, respectively.

Clearly, Ninja does better when he focuses on the game that made him popular. He may not be irrelevant without it, but it's definitely the game people want to see him play more than anything else.