Is Overwatch, one of the most popular FPS games of the time and Blizzard’s favorite, dying in 2021? Or does it still have its dependent fanbase keeping it alive? Everyone is aware that something is not right in Overwatch, which owned the 2017-2018 years and became a boiling issue in the gaming community and is one of my favorites personally. So what’s going on with Overwatch?
Overwatch, whose popularity reached its peak in 2018, had more than 50 million players. Thanks to the characters’ designs, the fact that it is a shooter game where you can use skills, its story, and different atmosphere, it has managed to become a game that many players play non-stop and enjoy. And it took this success at the top for two years.
So what happened to Overwatch? Is Overwatch dying in 2021? We can definitely say no. There is an ongoing group of active players still playing the game. Yes, there is no trace of the old popularity of the game, but this does not mean that the game is dead. We’ve seen many games that came out with bigger hype than that and are now bottoming out, and Overwatch is definitely not one of them.
Especially the characters in the game, such as Dva, Mercy, Tracer are still very well known all over the world and are used in most projects. This cannot be a sign of a dying game. But the hype for the game has decreased since Blizzard did some things wrong. This may be because they delayed the sequel of Overwatch 1 too much.
Overwatch 2 should have been out by now, but the game has been delayed many times, both due to Covid and problems that Blizzard suffered. Moreover, the game is currently still in development. Passionate Overwatch fans waiting for the game’s release are very frustrated and unhappy with the constant delay of the game. Most of them quit playing the game.
But it still has enough players to outrun most games. Although the game has not been updated for a long time, the game is still played at a certain level due to the committed player base. But this drop in player numbers is not befitting of Blizzard. They think they will fix it with the second game.
Why It Lost Its Huge Popularity?
Of course, like most games, the biggest reason Overwatch has lost its popularity is the lack of new content. Since they aim to present all the significant updates (new heroes, new maps, and new gameplay) in Overwatch 2, there hasn’t been a major update for about two years, and players have to play with the same heroes and the same mechanics.
- Since the game has started to repeat itself, most players got bored and turned to other new, updated games. In particular, Valorant, which has many inspirations from Overwatch, has overcome the success of Overwatch. And considering that the game is more skill-based than shooting, the game always revolves around the same thing.
- Overwatch was a game known for its big events. It attracted many players with new themes and new skin lines. But for a while, they have left the players who love this game very much like me indifferent, as they have offered past events to their players and brought barely new things to the game.
- There are no changes to the meta in the game. Characters that have been strong for a long time get rushed, and other characters are left unplayed because they are out of the meta. A balancing act is required to prevent this. Also, no new hero has been released for a long time.
- In particular, it was known in its time for signing big tournaments competing with CSGO’s Esport tournaments. There are still ongoing Esport tournaments, but they are not followed as enthusiastically as before. This is because professional players cannot fully reflect their own skills.
- Also, the toxicity in the game is unavoidable! Since the report system does not fully work, AFK players and toxic players can do whatever they want comfortably. The game is so deserted. Since they do not prevent this, the players who want to play the game in a chill way suffer.
So is Overwatch dead as a result? Nopers. Every game has its ups and downs. Overwatch just needs to apply and adapt to changes in the world. And the game also needs some care. If they bring some changes to the game, that would be great, and the game is still playable.
How Many Players Play Overwatch in 2021?
Unfortunately, Blizzard does not directly disclose how many people play their games. But former director of Overwatch Jeff Kaplan emphasized that the player base exceeded 50 Million in 2020. That’s an incredible number for a game that’s still thought to be dead.
In 2021, this number has risen to 53 Million players. As of 2018, the game was gaining more than 6 million players every month. But as of late 2019 and 2020, player base decrease started to be seen. In 2021, this decrease still continues, although it is a little less frequent.
As you can see on the chart, only 11 million new players have started playing Overwatch in the last two years. Overwatch’s growth rate was absolutely insane when it was released. Things are pretty changed this time around.
Overwatch 2021 Twitch Stats – Viewership
Twitch is the decider of the game’s popularity. When people love the game, they go and watch it on Twitch. When Overwatch was first released, it was among the most-watched games on Twitch. But as time passed, that hype died down. Now, it has only 30k viewers on Twitch maximum, which is quite less than it used to be.
As games like CoD, Valorant, Apex, Fortnite came out, Overwatch stayed behind them and lost its active player base. Although it was thrown into the gaming world with great potential and even had 50-60k viewers on Twitch regularly at the beginning, this number has decreased to 10-15k today.
As new games came out and Overwatch’s playability decreased, both streamers stopped broadcasting Overwatch and the number of viewers dropped significantly. To see Overwatch player count better, we can clearly understand it by looking at Twitch statistics.
When Does Overwatch 2 Comes Out?
Overwatch’s loyal fans are counting the days for Overwatch 2. But things are not progressing as they would like. Because the game does not even have a definite release year yet. Although many things have been explained and revealed about the game, when the game will be released is buried in secrets.
Everyone is tired of the game being delayed all the time. Most recently, the game was expected to be released in 2021, but in February 2021, Blizzard’s CFO, Dannis Durkin, confirmed that the game would not be released in 2021. According to the latest news, there is also no trace of Overwatch 2 in 2022.
A few things about the game were revealed at BlizzCon 2021, and while this has excited fans, it’s still a bit frustrating that there is still so little concrete information about the game. It feels like the people who have been waiting for this for years are a bit unfair.
It is revealed that Overwatch 2 will primarily focus on PvE story missions. Both PvP and PvE will coexist. The fact that the game took so long to come out may be because PvE is more difficult to develop. Because they talked about bringing significant innovations and changes.
And after it’s taken this long and the hype is so high, fans want something really good to come out. The game is said to be in alpha. Several players have been given access to and tested on the current PvP version of the game. There are many different ideas for the game. I will share these with you.
What Awaits Us in Overwatch 2?
There is no information about the PvE phase of the game. But it is said to be more like Archive events that have already come to the game, which was very enjoyable for me because we were fighting A.I robots in line with the story of the game. This sounds very exciting, yet we have no solid information.
Changes have been made to the appearance of each character in the game. The colorings of most characters have been made more vivid and their outfits changed. Moreover, minor changes were also made to the weapon appearance of the characters.
There have been reports or leaks that several fundamental changes have been made so far, tanks have been strengthened, supports have been adjusted, and many DPS heroes have been reworked. Sombra and Bastion are two characters that have been developed and officially released by Blizzard.
The number of players per team in the game has been reduced to 5. There will now be only one tank instead of two tanks. I think this is the most important change in the game because long queue times were driving people crazy.
And since the number of tank players was less than the other roles, everyone had to wait for the tank. This should be news that will delight many tryhard Overwatch players, myself included.
Brand new maps and new game modes are coming. Many changes have been made in the payload mode, and we think they have been made in the capture mode. Also, we’ve already seen two new maps called New York and Rome on their live stream.
We didn’t know how many new characters would come to the game. However, at a press conference, one of the Overwatch developers announced that 15-17 new characters would be included in the game accidentally.
This is a truly enormous number. This means that the number of characters in the game will be doubled. So far, we know that only Sojourn has confirmed, and she is using an assault rifle/railgun combo that looks very satisfying.
In short, we have listed everything that will come to Overwatch 2 for you. Apart from these, we will keep you informed whenever there is a new development. It seems like it will take some time for new information to come out, as it is still a very long time for the game to be released.
The game developers predict that the game will gain great momentum and reach an even larger player base than before. What do you think? Do you think Overwatch 2 will be able to replace the first game’s big hype when it was first released in 2016?
Final Thoughts
In this article, I explained why Overwatch is not dead but why it lost many of its players due to indifference and disruption. However, if you’re mad about Overwatch like I am, you know how fun ranked games are. Although you can’t be DPS main due to very long queues, it’s very soon to be fixed. Just wait, and don’t be toxic to Mercy mains!
If you have any details about Overwatch 2, you can always share them with us and help us learn. Have a good game!
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