Blizzard today announced that more than 9.7 million players around the world played its upcoming team-based shooter Overwatch during the Open Beta for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, making it Blizzard’s biggest open beta ever. By the time the Open Beta came to a close on May 10, participants had joined forces for more than 4.9 billion minutes (over 81 million hours) across more than 37 million matches of intense competitive action, incredible teamwork, and all-out fun.
The beta was so popular that Blizzard extended it by an extra day to let even more players take part. We spent a lot of time with the game over the beta weekend and found it to by a lovely game. For that many people playing all at once Blizzard got some great stress tests on the servers, of which all ran just fine.
“We’re thrilled that such an incredible number of players from around the globe got a chance to check out Overwatch during the Open Beta,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “Our mission was to make sure as many console and PC gamers as possible could experience the full game ahead of its launch—the response was overwhelming, and we hope that everyone had a blast.”
In Overwatch, players choose from a cast of 21 heroes—each with their own unique arsenal of extraordinary weapons and incredible abilities—and team up to complete objectives on battlefields set in locations around the globe. Blizzard’s first-person shooter will arrive in stores on Windows PC, PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system, and Xbox One starting May 24. Heroes from around the world can join the coming conflict by pre-purchasingOverwatch today at www.playoverwatch.com/buy.
Overwatch will be available in English, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, German, European Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Russian, Korean (PC only), Japanese (PC and PS4™ system only), and traditional and simplified Chinese (PC only).
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