Anticipation for the sequel to 2016’s Overwatch is at a fever pitch, with the promise of Overwatch 2 beta access fuelling the largest daily concurrent Twitch viewership the series has experienced to date.
Squeaking past the game’s previous high mark of 1.46 million viewers, yesterday’s milestone is a big deal for the game, which already ranked in the top ten games with the highest daily viewerships on the platform.
However, it’s not all good news for Blizzard, as the beta ploy seems to have left many players frustrated.
Overwatch Has Highest Ever Daily Twitch Viewership
Celebrating the milestone on Twitter, the official Overwatch account thanked viewers and stated: “Together we reached over 1.5M concurrent views, the highest day ever for Overwatch on Twitch. Let’s go!”.
The Twitter account of Overwatch League, the game’s competitive esports platform, exuberantly touted: “1500 beta keys released PER HOUR”, adding that players who missed out will have another chance to grab access by watching the Overwatch League opening weekend, due to start on May 5.
Though, some of those viewers in the replies were less enthusiastic, with many complaining of issues around getting into the game via the drops they’d claimed.
Others on the gaming forum resetera disapproved of the somewhat cynical use of the drops to boost the Twitch viewership, as players had to sit through a four-hour livestream that many weren’t too interested in for a chance to gain access.
“While I'm happy Overwatch is getting the adrenaline shot it needs, these numbers don't mean as much when most of the viewers were probably there to get beta access”, said user Niosai.
User Dest was less forgiving, saying: “You forced people to watch streams to get beta access. This literally means nothing.”
Other users openly admitted to having the stream open and muted in a tab while they did other things.
Though, as user Zebesian-X remarked, this phenomenon is hardly unique to Overwatch: “I think Valorant’s peak was drops-enhanced too, wouldn’t be surprised if the same went for some of the other games. It certainly works to get people tuned in”.
Despite Overwatch’s bumper numbers, the honours for top daily Twitch viewership are still comfortably held by League of Legends, which is trailed by Fortnite and Minecraft.
Make sure to follow us for more Overwatch 2 updates in the run-up to release.
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