We’ve learned Overwatch 2 topped 1 million concurrent viewers on Twitch, making the game’s beta launch one of the most viewed titles on the platform.
Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 has only just released into beta for barely a day and already it’s smashed Overwatch’s previous record for most concurrent viewers on Twitch.
Blizzard Entertainment confirmed they reached over 1.5 million viewers. Though according to TwitchTracker, it “only” managed 1.45 million. This is still an impressive feat considering that the previous record was 439,152 in January 2018 for the first game.
Note that at the time, the tag for the category was for the “Overwatch” tag on Twitch. As at that point there was no tag for Overwatch 2. So this would mean that the tag is counting the views of two games at the same time to reach this level.
Though it is clear that the high viewership is mainly due to the gameplay of the beta rather than the title released nearly six years ago.
This popularity certainly is a good look for Blizzard who has gone through multiple setbacks and controversies since the announcement of Overwatch 2 back in 2019.
Notable examples being their sexual misconduct lawsuit, which led to the company changing the name of one of the characters in the game due to being named after one of the developers accused of such misconduct. They were also acquired by Microsoft when the tech giant announced their purchase of Activision Blizzard in January 2022.
Much of this viewership is thanks in part to many high profile streamers, such as xQc, who brought in 273K viewers at one point in time all on his own.
As well as others such as A_Seagull and mL7support who also brought in roughly 100K each in viewership. With these numbers in a small handful of streamers, it is no surprise that Overwatch 2 was able to break pass the one million mark rather comfortably.
However, it should be noted that this high viewership may not necessarily be just from fans wanting to watch the game in beta. Similar to Riot Games’ Valorant, which had its own high level of viewership, there is a beta key reward for watching streams.
In Overwatch 2’s case, Blizzard partnered with Twitch to use Twitch Drops to give out beta keys. Viewers were required to watch four hours of gameplay in order to receive one of these beta keys.
Even though the Twitch Drops have since ended their promotion. Fans of the series can still find a way to get into the beta by viewing the Overwatch League (OWL). The Esports scene of the game where there is going to be another promotion that allows viewers to have a chance to obtain a beta key by watching the competitive matches.
Overwatch 2 is planned for a release across Windows PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. If there’s any indication based on these numbers, then it seems that Blizzard can look forward to another successful game launch as they move into their new era post-acquisition by Microsoft.
