Activision Blizzard has a hit on its hand. We were able to enjoy an open beta for Overwatch between May 5-10. That “we” is a pretty big number, because the official figure has been released. Brace yourself, because over 9.7 million people participated in that open beta.
Wondering how that compares to other recent open betas? Battleborn , Overwatch’ s direct competitor, only had over 2 million players . About 1.6 million people played the Gears of War 4 beta. The only recent release that comes close is Star Wars Battlefront , which had over 9.5 million players . Clearly, Overwatch has a lot of hype and could be a hit.
We’ll know for sure when Overwatch comes out on May 24. It certainly seems like it’s got tons of potential. In the meantime, we can tide ourselves over by watching the Dragons animated short starring Hanzo and Genji at 10am PT/1pm ET on May 16.