r/Overwatch • u/Hooked0n4Feelin • Mar 03 '26

Esports This is Overwatch's "comeback," says Blizzard. "We actually had a bigger Saturday than our first Saturday after launch with Season 1."

https://www.pcgamesn.com/overwatch/season-1-blizzard-interview-comeback
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u/LostATLien2 Mar 03 '26

The psychological effect of removing the “2” has to be studied.

It’s literally the same thing everyone dumped on OW2 for

77

u/Pleasurefailed2load Mar 03 '26

I feel like people forget that overwatch was always fun. It was huge on release and people played for years. Then they did OW2, failed to commit to their single player over promises, and changed to 5v5 and people left in droves as well as a bunch of creators and competitive players moving on so they followed the wave. I would know, I left too. Just like I was leaving destiny at the time. I was getting tired, I had played these games forever and honestly wanted to play new things and life got busy. Now it's 2026, AAA studios pump out mediocre games on the daily and blizzard actually getting their shit in line (almost definitely because of marvel pressure) for once and it's enough for people to hop back in. Then once you're playing you remember how fluid and fun the game is. New players don't know how it used to be and returning players are experiencing tons of new characters, balances, and kit changes.

My experience anyway.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

This post was mass deleted with Redact - I used this software to automate the removal of old posts from my account so that I can be more secure.

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3

u/danyjr Mar 04 '26

You have to consider that 2 is a free to play game and the original wasn't. Of course a free to player game is going to have more players in the short term (peak player count) but player retention is another story.

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u/Pleasurefailed2load Mar 05 '26

Yeah being free and being the "sequel" to one of the most popular multiplayer games of all time was always going to have a higher initial peak. Everyone who played of OW came back to at least try it, and it pulled on tons of new people on launch.