The popularity of the character Baby Yoda from The Mandalorian certainly helped make the case for subscribing to Disney+ for may people, but Netflix shouldn’t be worrying about losing subscribers just yet. New data suggests its new series The Witcher is currently the biggest television series in the world.
Television data firm Parrot Analytics has revealed that based on viewer demand, The Witcher is the biggest show worldwide at the moment. Most impressively, it has beaten out The Mandalorian, which has been hugely popular not only because of its Star Wars connection, but also due to the meme-ready character known as “The Child,” who the internet has collectively dubbed Baby Yoda. Due to his popularity, many pieces of official merchandise, including plush toys, were released shortly after the show premiered.
But even that adorable green creature didn’t make The Mandalorian as in-demand as The Witcher. According to Parrot Analytics, it logged almost 127 million “demand expressions” for The Witcher from December 22 to December 28. The show was also the second-most-streamed series on Netflix for 2019, with only the long-running Stranger Things coming out ahead.
The Netflix series was released all at once in December — as is the model for most Netflix shows — meaning those who chose to binge it will have to wait quite a bit before the second season is available. They could also watch the original Polish series The Hexer, but it was met with fairly scathing reviews from critics and fans alike when it released nearly two decades ago.
In the meantime, many fans appear to be playing the 2015 game The Witcher 3. Set after the events of the books that the Netflix series is based on, the game is widely considered to be among the best role-playing games of all time, and it’s available on everything from Xbox One to Nintendo Switch. Star Henry Cavill is among those playing the game — he’s already on his third playthrough.
On Steam, the game has hit its highest concurrent player count ever, which even tops the total for the game when it first launched. Rather than develop a sequel right away, studio CD Projekt Red moved forward with Cyberpunk 2077, which is set to release in 2020.
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