A revitalised Overwatch (formerly Overwatch 2) is bringing players back, propelling the game to most-watched status on streaming service Twitch, and to being one of the most played games on Steam – comfortably above copycat hero-shooter Marvel Rivals. There was even a queue to log in to Overwatch when I played yesterday evening, which is something I’ve never seen before.

Currently there are nearly 100,000 people watching Overwatch streams on Twitch, making it the most viewed game by some way, with nearly 30,000 more viewers than second-place game League of Legends. Meanwhile on Steam, Overwatch peaked at 165,000 players, putting it briefly in the top 10. It’s currently 13th, nearly 10 places ahead of genre rival Marvel Rivals, which has trumped Overwatch on Steam for a long time.

Note, however, that Overwatch is not only available on Steam. The predominant platform for play is Battle.net, which is presumably where the bulk of the audience lies. Should the jump in activity on Steam reflect the jump in activity on Battle.net, then, the actual number of Overwatch players is presumably much higher.

The Reign of Talon Expansion

The renewed Overwatch activity is due to an expansion-like release, The Reign of Talon, which arrived yesterday. It’s the game’s first expansion and heralds the beginning of a new yearly expansion-era for Overwatch, which Blizzard will release in addition to more regular Season updates.

Season 1 – the kick-off season for Reign of Talon – brings five new heroes to the game at once, which is an unprecedented amount for Overwatch, and Blizzard plans to add five more new heroes over the course of the year. These aren’t the only changes to the game, though, with major user interface reworks and story-related changes present as well.

So… Death Chandelier??? byu/Synodii in Overwatch

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But it’s the new heroes that everyone is talking about – notably the new flying hero Jetpack Cat, who has the meta-shaking new ability to tow other characters through the air. All of the combo possibilities of this are currently being felt out. Among them, lifting a spinning, Ultimate-ing Reaper above a team to prevent them hiding behind cover; airlifting the hammer-swinging Reinhardt through the air to duel other airlifted Reinhardts; and discovering bizarre quirks such as being able to kill people before a match has officially begun. People are also getting to grips with the other new heroes, such as Emre, and discovering how potent they can be. The question is how long Overwatch can keep this renewed momentum up for.

Not all of the new heroes have gone down well, though. Controversy arose over the weekend around the visual appearance of new fire-wielding hero Anran, whose final, cute in-game look seemed to contradict a more ferocious design used in previously-released animated shorts and comics for the game. Anran’s face also appears very similar to a lot of other female characters in the game – an issue the community refers to as “same-face syndrome”. Blizzard has said it’s discussing her design with the intention of making changes to it.

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