Turns out there were and awful lot of people interested in trying out Blizzard’s upcoming first person shooter, Overwatch. The open beta that ran last weekend was played by 9.7 million people, across PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, making it the biggest open beta in Blizzard’s history.
But, they’re being a bit modest here, because we’ve seen several companies tout “biggest ever” beta tests over the last couple of years and then hedge their bets one way or another. Destiny got 4.6 million players, back in the middle of 2014, and Activision said that was the biggest for a new IP at that time. That “new IP” record was battered by The Division, which saw 6.4 million players, but neither of them could really stand up to the established Star Wars Battlefront brand, which brought over 9.5 million flocking to EA’s yard.
Overwatch just sneaks past the previous high water mark set by Star Wars Battlefront by a couple hundred thousand. That’s especially impressive without having a classic film franchise to back it up and bodes well for the game’s release later this month on May 24th.
Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment was understandably “thrilled that such an incredible number of players from around the globe got a chance to check out Overwatch during the Open Beta. Our mission was to make sure as many console and PC gamers as possible could experience the full game ahead of its launch—the response was overwhelming, and we hope that everyone had a blast.”
Now that you’ve all give it a go, are you looking forward to diving back in for some more?
Source: press release
Avenger
Overwatch is Blizzard, Battleborn is Gearbox. Overwatch is Blizzard, Battleborn is Gearbox. I’m getting it, I’m getting it. Slowly…
Incidentally I didn’t get chance to play the Overwatch beta due to limited time, although I will admit to not being that bothered thinking it was Gearbox’s game. D’oh.
pdannysan13
The beta was a blast. It was everything I expected, it just simplu delivers. The game is fun. They made FPS fun again. When I play this game I feel lots of combinations of previous games: Unreal Tournament, CS, Call of Duty 2, Quake. I didnt play TF2 but I know the game relies heavily on it.
The game is just a marvel and you should try it.