Even a few years after its release, Overwatch is still one of the most popular multiplayer games out there with Blizzard, although not officially, revealing numbers of 10 to 20 million players in recent months. Many people claim that the game is ‘dead’ or ‘irrelevant’ but this is just because they themselves have stopped playing it and are trying other people to do the same.
The game has recently gained popularity once again with major balancing changes being introduced and the recent introduction of role which has locked a 2 Tank 2 DPS and 2 Healer style of play which allows for much more fair games than before. The amazing backstory and terrifyingly amazing personality disorder of Hero number 31, Sigma also attracted new players for the game as well as causing old ones to return as well.
How Many People Play Overwatch
The last official player count that we got from Blizzard was all the way back in the May of 2018, with the company revealing a mind blowing figure of 40 million players worldwide. Although this was based on the number of copies sold, this is still an impressive figure for any game. The release of games like Fortnite and Apex Legends had no major effect on Overwatch in terms of player count, Overwatch has always had a loyal fan base but you can’t say Blizzard hasn’t done it’s part.
With regular updates and balance changes the player base gets what it wants in terms of gameplay although the game has highly disappointed when it comes to events. Many players of the game took to social media and complained about the huge disappointment which was the Storm Rising event and no one can blame them.
Players have to wait a whole year for the annual Archives event and Storm Rising was not what players expected after all the hype and the fuss around the mode.
Many people complained it was too easy and too short even on legendary difficulty, and it wasn’t without good reason. Many people had stopped playing the game following the release of the Storm Rising event according to unofficial numbers that had been leaked, but were inevitably brought back in increased numbers with the introduction of the 3rd anniversary of the game.
With the introduction of the 3rd anniversary of Overwatch blizzard released a celebratory teaser which revealed some interesting numbers for stats of the game since the last anniversary, such as:
- 178 million payloads had been delivered in the year since the last anniversary while 48 million had been forgotten.
- There had been a shocking 2.3 billion kills using Hammond (Wrecking Ball).
- Players had unlocked a combined total of 29 million dances which is a big stat provided that dances are only unlockable during the anniversary event.
- Players had shared a total of 4.1 billion endorsements between one another.
- Bob was called upon a total of 510 million times.
These are all impressive stats and go to show that Overwatch is still quite popular. From these numbers you can roughly estimate that at least 15-17 million people still play the game but nothing is sure.
If it’s trouble finding games or anything similar that you are worried about then don’t worry, the game still has a very healthy and stable player base and you should be able to find games within a matter of two or three minutes, maybe lower given what role you are in a queue for. Although not all friendly, Overwatch has millions of players that you can play along with grouping up with friends to play fun modes and competitive games.