If you follow a bit of video game news, then you’ve probably seen Overwatch’s great comeback, which began last night with a beta of the second episode. And this one was (very) viewed on Twitch.
1.5 million viewers, just that
A few hours ago, the Overwatch franchise was making a big comeback with Overwatch 2: not the full game, no, but a private beta eagerly awaited by a gigantic community. It must be said that this sequel was desired for a long time, turning into a little Arlesian and raising questions with its promises of PvE, a game mode which is however not on the agenda in this first demo. (which focuses on the traditional competitive aspect).
In short, yesterday’s temperature reading was… good, very good, to say the least. In just two hours, the number of concurrent viewers on Twitch had already reached 500,000, more than the peak of 439,152 viewers obtained at the launch of the Overwatch League. Ultimately, a much larger number was reached during the night, namely more than 1.5 million people simultaneously. A totally shattered record for the saga.
A maliciously thought out beta
Activision-Blizzard has widely praised its players on social media: over 1.5 million concurrent viewers is simply unheard of for Overwatch, even after the first episode’s madness years ago. First of all, we can obviously cite the massive enthusiasm of the public who, yes, have not forgotten the FPS and for whom the nostalgia is effective.
Then another reason explains this success: to get a beta key yourself, you have to watch four hours of Overwatch 2 stream on Twitch, or at least on channels with Active Drops. A frankly intelligent deal for Amazon as for Activision-Blizzard, which then avoids the hazardous box of the draw.