Overwatch: One Year In and Still Strong

May 24, 2016:

Blizzard released Overwatch, a team based first person shooter (fps) about a task force group fighting against villains. The game was receiving praise for its colorful design (especially the characters) and the fun mechanics of the gameplay. The game released and immediately the reviews for Overwatch were very positive. Fans and critics alike were in amazement over the level of polish that Blizzard put into this game.

One year later, on May 24, 2017, Overwatch celebrates its one year anniversary still with a very strong following. This will be a look back on how Blizzard was able to improve and add to Overwatch to make the shooter it is today.

After the first release, Overwatch’s player base jump rapidly. The total amount of people playing after the first week was 7 million. This number then jumped to 10 by mid-June and kept rising over the year reaching 30 million players by April 2017.

In July 2016, Overwatch released their first new hero. This hero was Ana, a support sniper who changed the metagame of Overwatch very much. What was nice about Ana was that she was a free update and Blizzard said that all post launch heroes and stages would be for free. This followed soon after with Overwatch’s first event, Summer Games. It was released in August in time with the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics. This event came with new game modes, new costumes, and more customization options for each character. The event was a success and Blizzard released more events later in the year such as one for Halloween, Christmas, and Chinese New Year each being very different from the others.

Between the Halloween and Christmas event, Blizzard released their second new hero, Sombra, an offense character with the ability to hack other players. She proved to be a hit with the players and gave them more options for character choice. Later in early 2017, the latest character was added to Overwatch. That was Orisa, a tank who plays very differently from any other tank.

Right Now, Overwatch celebrates its one year anniversary, and the player base is growing every single day. With more updates, patches, and rework coming along with the release of a Game of the Year Edition, there is now plenty of reasons to pick up Overwatch. In the words of one character, Tracer: “The World Could Always use More Heroes.”