The relaunch of Overwatch is here, dropping the “2” from its former title and revamping itself with new heroes, new UI and new narrative focus. It’s something fans have been requesting for a long time, and they’re showing up more than ever for the launch. The launch of Overwatch just saw the game reach a new high concurrent player count on Steam, storming past 107,000 players after just a few minutes since release. This outpeaks its former high from the Overwatch 2 launch day back in August 2023 with 75,000 concurrent players.
Overwatch had a rough journey to get to its current player count high. Whilst formerly the king of the hero shooter and somewhat revolutionary for the industry as a whole, its failed rebrand with Overwatch 2 saw a crumbling player base migrate over to current reigning genre champion Marvel Rivals. Whilst the hero shooter featuring Marvel’s biggest stars still maintains a peak player base of over 100,000 a day on Steam, it appears Blizzard is back in the competition for player’s gaming time. At time of writing, there’s actually more players on Overwatch than Marvel Rivals!
The Steam player count doesn’t tell the entire story, as Overwatch is also available on both Battle.net and Xbox’s PC application, which divides the player base three ways across the platform. This makes it even more impressive that it was able to beat its Steam player count record though, as it shows a broad audience likely showing up for the game across devices. With a native Switch 2 launch planned for later this Spring, it’s a great time to get into Overwatch if you’ve never tried it out before.
Will you be diving into the new and improved Overwatch? Let us know all your thoughts in the comments down below or over on social media, and keep your eyes on GameObserver for more breaking gaming news exclusively written by humans.
