Overwatch's game-changing update isn't due to go live until tomorrow, February 10, but the evergreen hero shooter's Steam player count just saw its biggest surge in years regardless. And that's before the coming ascension of the internet's new favorite child, Jetpack Cat, I might add.
Overwatch's Steam records are a little muddied since the shooter didn't actually join the platform until summer 2024, despite the free-to-play 'sequel' launching on consoles and Battle.net on PC the year prior. Either way, Overwatch hit a peak of 75,000 concurrent players at the time before swiftly falling. And, now, the shooter's player count on Steam once again surged this weekend to almost 70,000 players.
That means the shooter edged past the concurrent player counts of several other forever games on the platform at various points over the weekend, including the likes of Call of Duty, Battlefield 6, and Team Fortress 2 – an impressive feat considering a large crowd are likely still playing on Battle.net as is the case for many a Blizzard Entertainment game.
Surging player counts and a renewed online interest aren't just a coincidence, mind. Blizzard recently revealed some sweeping changes to the shooter come tomorrow: Overwatch 2 will soon be renamed Overwatch again, but it's getting enough additions between the five new heroes and big story swings that I'm surprised the company isn't trying 'Overwatch 3'.
Still, the promise of a jetpack-flying ginger feline voiced by Commander Shepard isn't enough to drag up Overwatch's Steam reviews, at least not yet, as they're still stuck in the deepest depths of the gutter. Overwatch's all-time rating sits at 'Mostly Negative' with 65% of its 138,000 reviews on a thumbs down. Encouragingly, recent reviews are somewhat brighter with 51% of reviews giving it a positive rating.
From someone who's been playing Overwatch on and off for years, this is probably the best state the hero shooter's been in since its glory years a decade ago. New content's frequent, the monetization isn't overwhelmingly scummy, and it's still one of the rare shooters capable of being simultaneously playful and aggressive with its flexible, varied heroes. I'm pretty sure both its Steam player count and user reviews will peak over the next few days and weeks, too. Something tells me that damn cat's gonna do a lot of heavy lifting. Literally.
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