
Overwatch 2 got off to a bumpy start, but in terms of the game's launch population, the sequel has apparently set an "all-time record" - reaching 25 million players in the first ten days of the game's availability.
In an official Blizzard press release, it was mentioned how this number was "nearly triple" the previous daily player peak" from the original Overwatch. Here's what company president Mike Ybarra had to say about this milestone:
“The launch of Overwatch 2 has been such an important moment for Blizzard. We’re thrilled to bring new players from around the world into Overwatch’s vibrant universe while welcoming back the existing Blizzard community. This is only the beginning—there are so many possibilities to explore in the world of Overwatch, and we cannot wait for players to experience everything the team is building for the live game."
Although there are a lot of players, there have been some launch difficulties. Earlier this week Blizzard issued an apology to players after the game was hit by "mass DDoS attacks" and ongoing connection issues. In the first week, Blizzard also made the decision to drop the mobile phone number requirement for existing Overwatch and Battle.net users.
To make up for this, Blizzard will be offering a free all-new Cursed Captain Reaper Legendary Skin and a Health Pack Weapon Charm to all players who log in to Overwatch 2 from October 25th through to the end of Season One.
Overwatch 2 is free to download from the Nintendo Switch eShop. Are you one of the 25 million players who have played this game in its first 10 days? Leave a comment down below.
Comments 23
I've been enjoying it so far, playing it with a buddy of mine via cross play.
Good to hear things are smoothing out. My heart goes out to their IT/cloud teams. And the dev teams that couldn’t get their game into the living rooms of gamers before now.
Expected for the launch, in a few months is where the player count's gonna really matter, but for a free to play Overwatch game theres no doubt it's gonna be popular for a LONG time unless Blizzard messes up really bad.
I couldn't get on the first 24 hours. Now I haven't had an issue at all. I have actually been having a lot of fun with it.
Don't really think there was ever any question it'd have a huge launch, big question for its longterm prospects is going to be how well it holds going forward.
Literally this games biggest flaw is how they do micro transactions, everything else about the game is so fun!
Overwatch is such a fun game which is why it sucks that the company that makes it and everything other than the gameplay sucks..
It's been quite a fun experience and runs remarkably well on the Switch even with all the chaos going on. A great addition to it's library that will still be relevant in years most likely. Only had some weird experiences lately after the wreck of a launch as well.
If they improve the BP in the future to make it return your in-game currency (or just make the free pass not so horrible) I may get it but not with how bad it is now.
Still trying to get 50 wins to unlock competitive mode so I'll at least get some more focused and balanced matches.
With all the current issues the game is experiencing right now, I think blizzard really needs to fix things up quickly if it hopes to grow that number. Personally I’m gonna waiting and see if the PvE mode has any effect when it arrives.
Great game, it finally gave me all the heroes (I had OW1) yesterday.
Some of the benefits are how they reorganized the open and team queues, so you can still get some of that classic OW1 action before role queues began.
Played the first one and while it was fun.......at first I just started to lose interest in it. I might jump into this as I have a Battle.Net account but that is looking rather doubtful atm. My interest just isn't there now.
A lot of people are saying that the game is fun and I always want to give Overwatch a try but I’m too scared about the phone number requirement. Should I take the plunge and give the game a go?
Rough launch, but they’ve definitely fixed it quickly. I’m enjoying it a lot. Always loved the first game so it’s fun to get back into it.
I've heard from a lot of people that they downloaded this, tried to play it, and gave up, never to touch it again. These would still be counted in that 25 million.
@Greatluigi On one side, I'm sure the game is fun to some degree. On the other, I believe it will go down hill quickly as players are locked out of more characters, and there isn't a very good incentivized progression system. It might not really be worth the try, if there's a good chance you'll get sick of it quickly. But uh, hey I mean, maybe if you have nothing better to do?
@AX-7 Blizzard? Screw something up 6 months in?? Never!
@Greatluigi Phone req? You mean for Authenticator? It's only ever made me do that twice and I never get any aggravation otherwise. I play quite a few Blizz games and tbh I forgot it existed til you mentioned just now.
@pennylessz I actually really enjoy mobile games so do you think that means I won’t get tired?
@Greatluigi It kinda depends. What aspect of mobile games do you enjoy? Like sure, Overwatch 2 is probably going to be frequently updated, but on the other hand, it looks like a good degree of that will be locked behind a pay wall. So whether you get tired or not probably depends on whether or not you find the game frustrating mechanically, which I've heard some interesting takes on that. You've never played the first Overwatch though, and frankly, it was glorious. So maybe you'll be fine with this one.
@pennylessz the gameplay and the excitement of getting a new character that I want. (Yes I like gacha games)
And also the story (say what you will about mobile games being at the bottom of the barrel you gotta admit that the stories in them can be pretty good along with the characters)
@Greatluigi Ah, I play gacha games too. I had accounts that could probably be sold for a good bit, and I did it completely for free. But in Overwatch 2, it takes about 30 hours to unlock the character they added unless you pay. That's a ton of time, especially since it doesn't have an auto play feature or anything. Not to mention the queue times are supposedly not great.
I'm hit or miss on mobile stories, I usually play premium games if I'm looking for story when on my mobile device. Feel free to recommend something if you'd like. I remember Overwatch having a pretty nice story overall, nothing complicated, but it's all out of game stuff. Like videos you watch on YouTube, just for the context. I'm not sure if you'd like the game more getting the context first, or just jumping straight in. But for me, catching back up with it doesn't seem worthful if imma need to pay for whoever the heck they add. End of the day though, there isn't much like PW out there, maybe TF2? But that's getting older and older. So if you're looking for a class based shooter, this is probably it.
@pennylessz I’m actually getting into blue archive lately if your thinking about getting into it here’s a bit of advice. Save your premium currency for the limited banners since they have higher SSR rates.
And if your not interested then you can watch the cutscenes online since the story is really good and the characters all have charming and silly quirks.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...