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 Domina: Key art of Domina looking straight ahead with a very relaxed pose, pointing her Photon Magnum to the side. — (Image credit: Blizzard)

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.

Overwatch 2 Season 20: Vendetta shouting as she raises her sword above her head, about to slam it down. — (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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Elie is a news writer with an unhealthy love of horror games—even though their greatest fear is being chased. When they're not screaming or hiding, there's a good chance you'll find them testing their metal in metroidvanias or just admiring their Pokemon TCG collection. Elie has previously worked at TechRadar Gaming as a staff writer and studied at JOMEC in International Journalism and Documentaries – spending their free time filming short docs about Smash Bros. or any indie game that crossed their path.

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