Just a few days ago, Blizzard released some stats on the Overwatch open beta event that happened earlier this month. According to Blizzard, Overwatch’s open beta weekend counted over 9.7 million players from over 190 different countries worldwide. In total, the game was played for 4.9 billion minutes among players - equivalent to 9,380 years of gaming.
If you take the time to do the math, that’s roughly 8 hours and 25 minutes per player. That’s pretty impressive for a 4 day open beta.
Understandably, some players who thoroughly enjoyed the beta have been going through some withdrawal symptoms on websites like reddit at /r/Overwatch. Due to the lack of in-game footage that hasn’t been already posted, many of the beta players have turned to sh*tposting various things from memes to puns, and even fake doctor’s notes.
Thankfully, Blizzard broke the drought with two animated shorts over the last week. The first one was “Dragons”, which revealed some backstory to the two Japanese warriors: Hanzo and Genji. More recently, the animated short “Hero” (below) was released and gives some insight into the inner conflicts of the hero known as Soldier 76.
A reminder for owners of the digital release, Overwatch officially releases worldwide tomorrow, but the game technically releases on May 23 for those living in the Americas at 7 PM EDT. That means all servers will be active from that time onward, so if you already have the game installed you can start fighting for the future right away!
For specific dates and times for worldwide releases you can check out the map below.
Unfortunately for those of us living in Canada, Victoria Day may get in the way of playing Overwatch tonight if you bought a physical copy, as many stores are closed. Hopefully a new wave of streams will help curb the desire just a bit longer.
Are you excited to start your (Over)watch? What hero will you be looking forward to playing tonight? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!
