Overwatch is about to start a daring latest era. On February 10, it’s dropping not one, not two, but five heroes into players’ hands, with a full 12 months’s price of hype-inducing content en route. And, oh, yeah, I didn’t say Overwatch 2, did I? I said Overwatch. Because Blizzard is dropping the digit. We’re going back.
The artist formerly often called Overwatch 2 has had some real hills to climb. The planned PvE mode, which might have offered a story-rich iteration to the live-service hero shooter, was nixed and replaced with quick little missions that absolutely fizzled out, anyway. Overwatch fans are fierce concerning the characters they love, and steadily committed to consuming every ounce of lore they will get their hands on, so the cancelation of a more narrative-savvy approach went over very, very, poorly.
Yet, things are looking up. They’re really coming up roses without delay. A lot hype is hitting in anticipation of the brand new season, in truth, that even where the sport has never pulled in its biggest player count, it’s rising up the charts to a notable degree.
Even You, Steam?
When it launched over two years ago, Overwatch 2 hit a Steam CCU peak of 75,608. Now, that does not necessarily sound terrific for a big-budget live-service title, and all things being equal, it would not be. However the game has at all times enjoyed comparably robust figures on Battle.net, to say nothing of its popular performance on home consoles. Simply put, Steam has never been the most effective gauge for Overwatch.
Yet, success can still be ascertained when those launch numbers, nonetheless modest they might sound out of context, are nearly achieved all once again. I would like to emphasise, the brand new season is not out yet. These are people who find themselves coming back in preparation for it; not one of the “season one” content that is poised to bring Overwatch 2 right into a latest era is even here yet. So, whenever you see 67,844 people logged into the hero shooter on the weekend prior to Blizzard’s huge moment, something’s up.
In actual fact, while every little thing’s relative in life, it’s price noting that Overwatch even has a leg up on Battlefield 6 without delay. As of this writing, Dice’s well-received FPS is trailing just barely behind. I do not expect this to carry for long, nevertheless it’s testament to Overwatch’s newfound success, especially after we consider the indisputable fact that, unlike Overwatch, Battlefield does are likely to put its best foot forward in Steam-based metrics.
It’s interesting times for Overwatch. The rebranding, the reimagining, it’s all here, and we’ll soon see what type of endurance it adds to a now-classic IP.