Overwatch 2 beta breaks records with 1.5 million Twitch viewers

metro.co.uk:

The beta for Overwatch 2 has created the series’ biggest audience ever on Twitch, and one of the largest of all time.

For the last few years Overwatch has been looking like a spent force, with declining interest in its esports scene and the game in general – not to mention the collateral damage brought on by the workplace controversies at developer Blizzard.

The only hope for the franchise was in its sequel, but a series of delays and few concrete details seemed to suggest it might be a flop… but that’s certainly not been the case since the beta for Overwatch 2 started, at least judging by its viewership on Twitch.

According to Blizzard, the game reached a peak of over 1.5 million concurrent views on the streaming service, the highest ever for Overwatch and one of the highest ever.

The 1.5 million views is the eighth highest recorded for any game, beating the likes of Roblox, World Of Warcraft, and GTA 5.

It’s also within spitting distance of other major games such as Call Of Duty: Warzone on 1.61 million, Dota 2 on 1.71 million, Valorant on 1.73 million, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on 1.91 million, and Minecraft on 1.93 million.

Only two games have ever had figures above 2 million, with Fortnite’s record being 2.28 million and League Of Legends well ahead of the pack on 3.08 million.

However, the situation is not quite as straightforward as it seems, since the primary reason many people were tuning in to Overwatch 2 is in order to get a code to enter the beta themselves, the most reliable way of which is to wait for a Twitch drop from a streamer – something which can take over four hours.

So while people may not have been watching if it wasn’t for the chance of getting a code, the fact that they want one so badly still