Blizzard’s long-awaited first-person shooter Overwatch 2 has had a rocky launch, to say the least. Multiple connectivity issues, two DDOS attacks, and issues with merging accounts have left players extremely dissatisfied with Blizzard’s service. But even with an unexpectedly troublesome launch, there has been a silver lining: taking to Twitter the company announced the news that the first-person shooter has already amassed a staggering 25 million players within just 10 days of its release.
A considerably massive statistic, 25 Million is just 1 million players shy of Australia’s population.
While the achievement is note-worthy, it is necessary to differentiate between registered players and active players. Technically, Overwatch 2 has a consistent player base of around 1 million per day – and that’s across all platforms. So yes, 25 Million registered players are big, but it doesn’t mean that there are 25 Million players online all the time.
There are many factors at play that are contributing to the success of Overwatch 2. Firstly the game is free-to-play which is a sure-fire way to attract users, secondly, the game is a product of a massive company that has developed other successful games in the past and thirdly Blizzard has discontinued support Overwatch 1 – meaning that any unlocked content from the first game (Skins and Lootboxes) has been brought over to the second, successfully forcing players of the past game to either leave Overwatch in the past or migrate to its sequel.
With Halloween around the corner, Overwatch 2 will be getting its first seasonal event. Running from October the 25th and ending around November the 8th, Players can expect Halloween-styled cosmetics, new skins for Junker Queen, Kiriko, Reaper, and Sojourn (amongst others), and an exciting new PvE mode. The game’s new four-player PvE mode will reportedly feature Sojourn, Junker Queen, Ashe, and Kiriko as playable characters, although not too much else is known about the new game mode itself at this point.
Overwatch 2 is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.