Superstar streamer Michael "shroud" Grzesiek returned to a massive audience on Twitch today, even though he went live an hour late. Hundreds of thousands of viewers tuned in to watch him play Valorant, although most had to watch a "starting soon" banner for an hour. The viewership numbers kept climbing during the wait, too, even despite some technical difficulties.

　　"It wouldn't be a Shroud stream without some difficulties," he said once he went live. Viewership ballooned to over 500,000 people once he started his broadcast. "I've been gone for a long time."

　　Shroud was originally scheduled to go live at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET, but didn't show his face until almost an hour later. Once he did start the stream had several technical issues including audio dropping from his opening video.

　　"I don't know how many people were watching this expecting something grand," he said adding that he was just going to "play games" like any other stream. Shroud said he got more than 13,000 Twitch subscriptions from viewers shortly after going live.

　　"I am so excited to be able to announce my return to Twitch and more importantly get back to streaming. Twitch is where I was able to first turn my passion for streaming into a successful career—and it is all due to my incredible and loyal fanbase," Shroud said in a statement yesterday. The streamer signed a new exclusivity deal with the Amazon-owned service recently.

　　Shroud announced an exclusive return to Twitch after his deal with Mixer got paid out after Microsoft chose to close the service and partner with Facebook Gaming. His original deal is rumored to have made him $10 million. Not a bad payday after streaming on Mixer for less than a year.

　　Shroud was one of the most notable faces on Twitch when he announced he would exclusively stream on Mixer last October. Viewership on Mixer remained low compared to competitors like Twitch and Youtube despite Microsoft shelling out millions to bring over streamers like shroud and Tyler "Ninja" Blevins. As of July 22, all Mixer sites and apps direct viewers to Facebook Gaming.