Retiring Squad Stream

During the TCLV keynote in October, Dan shared our commitment to making collaboration easier and more powerful on Twitch. He announced new Stream Together features we’re building in 2024 like merged chat, combined viewership, and a favorites list that makes it easy to drop in and stream with friends. As of a few weeks ago, Stream Together is now available in beta to all streamers. Partners, Affiliates, Everyone.

In March 2019, we launched Squad Stream to help foster collaboration by allowing up to four streamers to go live together and viewers to watch them in one window. While you loved the concept of streaming together, the adoption of Squad Stream by Partners has been much lower than originally hoped for, with less than 1% of Partner streams being Squad Streams. Partners who used Squad Stream told us the product lacked features that would make it useful for them, like flexible layouts, merged chat, and a more co-op experience. Also, viewers reported the four up view that shows multiple gameplay angles was overwhelming. Given all we’ve learned and where we are with Stream Together, we’ve made the decision to deprecate the Squad Stream product. As of January 17th, Squad Stream will no longer be available.

We know collaborations are foundational to streamer success, and we have big ambitions to make them a more central part of the Twitch product experience in the future. Stream Together supports the same types of limited collaborations as Squad Stream, but also enables broader use cases across more streamers, categories, and streaming setups. It’s a more flexible product that gives you more control over how you collaborate, and how your collaborations are represented on your stream. Next year we’re adding merged chat, combined viewership, and numerous other Stream Together improvements that will make these collaborations even better.

I know for those streamers that use Squad Stream, this is disappointing news and you might wonder why we can’t just keep Squad Stream going while continuing to improve the Stream Together product. The reason we are deprecating is that the technology that powers Squad Stream is outdated and requires significant investment. Rather than split our resources to maintain a product that isn’t serving streamers as we intended, we’ve decided to use your feedback to build a more robust Stream Together. We’re certain this path allows us to offer a better solution for streamers.

If you are a regular Squad Stream user, we recommend you check out this help article, which explains how you can set up Stream Together collaborations similar to what you’re accustomed to. If you are an Affiliate who was hoping to someday use Squad Stream, you now have beta access to Stream Together as well. There’s more information about how you can get started here.

As always, we’ll be looking to you for feedback. You can submit your ideas for additional collaboration features and anything else you would like to see on UserVoice.