Overwatch's big update has paid off, with the first season launching to a record number of players on Steam. Yesterday, the number of concurrent players on Steam alone reached 165,651, and with players queuing on other platforms, the total will be much, much higher.
Even better, user reviews are recovering slightly. While overall reviews are still mostly negative, recent reviews have been mixed, so this big wave of content and rebranding is definitely paying off.
Overwatch does what Overwatch 2 couldn't
Last night we covered how this surge in players was enough to push Overwatch past Marvel Rivals. This is despite the fact that Overwatch is on more platforms and launchers than Marvel Rivals, which is all the more impressive that it has accumulated so many players on Steam alone.
Yesterday's update changed the name from Overwatch 2 back to Overwatch, while adding five new characters to the roster and an event-based conquest mode that allows players to fight as either Overwatch or Talon.
It seems to have won back old fans and brought in new ones, as its peak of 165,651 players on Steam is more than double the previous record. Before that, the most concurrent players it brought in was 75,608, when it first hit Steam in 2023 and when Overwatch 2 launched. So Overwatch 3.0 goes down a lot better.
However, it was not without some controversy. Most notably, fans were not happy with the character design for the new hero Anran. Even Anran's actor agreed that changes could be made since the design was incredibly similar to the baby faces of most of the other women on the list. Blizzard has since confirmed that they are looking into it, so we could see an updated character model at some point.
Right now, Blizzard will focus on retaining as many of these new players as possible. The Overwatch vs. Talon, so he starts in a very good position. We'll just have to see how he fares against rivals like Marvel Rivals in future seasons.
- Released
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May 24, 2016
- ESRB
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T for Teens: Blood, Tobacco Use, Violence (online interactions not rated)
- Engine
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Proprietary
- Multiplayer
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Online multiplayer
- Cross-platform play
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ps5, xbox, pc
- Cross Save
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Yes
