Overwatch to hit 100 million players during season 10

Overwatch 2 is poised to break a huge KPI milestone as soon as April, Blizzard says.

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Overwatch 2 is an interesting case of a publisher actively experimenting with a new strategy, failing with said strategy, and actively pivoting while the game continues its live service delivery. Blizzard's new free-to-play endeavor has missed the mark with profitability, leading to cut budgets for the dev team, but that doesn't mean it's not popular.

According to OW2's devs, the franchise is set to achieve 100 million lifetime players by April. It's important to clarify that this milestone refers to the total sum of players of both Overwatch games and does not refer to just Overwatch 2.

"The Overwatch community is on track to reaching 100 million players next season, and our team is dedicated to developing this game alongside you," said Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller.

Season 10 is set to release next month in April.

"We've been listening closely to your feedback, and ahead of season 10, we'll be back with another developer update to share even more details on upcoming changes."

So just how popular is Overwatch 2, at least when it comes to players? According to data found by Timur222 on Twitter, the game managed to achieve over 50 million active users and made $222 million in revenue. We don't know the timeframe in which this occurred, however (e.g. how long it took to make those players and revenue).

The milestone comes shortly after Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard King for $68.7 billion, and Overwatch is one of the many billion-dollar video game franchises the tech giant now owns. In 2023, Xbox Studios boss Matt Booty said that the company had 10x games that each have over 10 million players. From the data provided here, Overwatch 2 is now among the top titles.

Blizzard recently made the decision to completely overhaul Overwatch 2's live service structure and make all future heroes free for everyone. The move will also see all future skins being sold in a microtransaction shop.

"I'm thrilled to share that Venture, and all future heroes, will be free for all players when they launch. Starting with Venture, heroes will no longer be unlocked through the battle pass. This includes all previous overwatch 2 heroes," Keller said during the update.