Overwatch is dropping the “2” from its name and rebooting for a new era of story-driven gameplay, and already the refresh seems to be drawing players back. Overwatch hit a peak of almost 70,000 concurrent players on Steam over the weekend, the highest the sequel has seen since its all time peak on launch day.
According to Steam charts, Overwatch (which still retains the 2 on Steam for the time being) hit a peak of 69,881 concurrent players over the weekend–shockingly close to its launch day high of 75,608, and higher than it has been in the two and a half years since. The peak in players even saw Overwatch creep past Call of Duty and Battlefield 6–though neither of them are particularly dominant on Steam.
Overwatch has not had a great history with Steam, where its lifetime reviews are only around 27% positive, and concurrent players quickly dropped off after peaking on release day. It’s a surprise to many to see player numbers picking up on the platform, when the game’s first rebooted season hasn’t even launched yet–though a limited-time trial for new hero Anran is currently active.
It’s yet to be seen whether player numbers on Steam will continue to rise when the new content is added, though it’s worth noting that Steam is only a small part of Overwatch’s player count on PC, with long-term players more likely to access the game through the Battle.net launcher. Overwatch’s Steam reviews still paint a bleak picture for the game, with recent reviews hitting a “mixed” rating of just over 50% positive, which is still a step up from its all-time “mostly negative” rating.
Season 1 of the soft-rebooted Overwatch is called The Reign of Talon, which will drop on February 10. Alongside a new narrative-driven format, the new season will add 5 new playable heroes at once–a move Overwatch’s game director has admitted will throw off the balance for a while.