Overwatch just hit its all-time player count peak on Steam, clocking in over 165,000 players, more than two years after it first released on the platform

Overwatch just had its huge reset last night, dropping the ‘2’, adding five new characters, and revamping the UI, to name just a few changes. It was also the first time I’d seen a queue to get into the servers for quite some time.

We unfortunately don’t have any numbers for player count on Battle.net, Overwatch’s primary launcher, but Steamdb has come in clutch to give us a better idea of just how many people tuned in last night to see what all the hubbub was about. The Reign of Talon season 1 brought in an impressive 165,651 peak concurrent players on Steam last night, a personal best for Overwatch on said platform.

(Image credit: Blizzard)

I was on Overwatch last night, although not via Steam, as I didn’t just start playing in the last two years. And I can say that this update was everything I’d hoped it would be. The new UI looks great; it’s still clean, and given that I am usually averse to any major changes, I’m surprised as to how much I like it.

Then there are the new heroes. Jetpack Cat is just as much fun as she sounds; her mobility is unmatched, making her more of an annoying threat than Moira, which is saying something. Emre is fantastic, I’ve always wanted some Halo in my Overwatch, and Domina looks like she’ll be tank meta for quite some time.

I will say my only gripe with this new season so far is that Team 4 decided to add all the new heroes into competitive play straight away. I’m not so mad about Anran being there as we’ve had some time with her now, but learning how to counter four heroes on the fly after a competitive reset is certainly stressful.

But overall, it’s been a great start to the new season, so I’m not surprised with how many people decided to come in and take a look. If only we had the figures for Battle.net, that would likely show us some really impressive numbers, but that’s something of a pipe dream.

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