Over 35 million people have already played Overwatch 2, a free-to-play sequel to Blizzard’s hero shooter. That’s an impressive start, but let’s see how these numbers compare to the launches of other successful F2P games.
It took Overwatch 2 a month to attract 35 million players, according to Activision Blizzard’s latest quarterly report. “The expanded community is engaging deeply, with average daily player numbers for the first month of Overwatch 2 more than double that of its acclaimed predecessor,” the company said.
The game reached 25 million players after 10 days. However, this might not be all that impressive given that Overwatch 2 is: 1) free-to-play; 2) a sequel to a successful premium title with a huge fanbase.
The first game reached over 10 million players in less than a month since its launch. As of April 2021, Overwatch had 60 million people who had purchased it. Many players really loved it, despite the lack of support from Blizzard in recent years.
Overwatch 2 will likely become a successful game despite its issues and controversial monetization. However, everything is relative.
Overwatch 2 vs other free-to-play shooters
Apex Legends
Respawn Entertainment’s battle royale attracted 25 million unique players in the first week since its surprise launch on February 4, 2019. Although the game was made by veterans of the FPS genre, that’s still pretty impressive results for a brand new IP.
Apex Legends crossed the 50 million mark by the end of the first month. Earlier this year, the game reached over $2 billion in lifetime revenue, eventually turning into one of Electronic Arts’ main revenue drivers.
Call of Duty: Warzone
Call of Duty always plays in a league of its own when it comes to player numbers and revenue. However, the launch stats for Warzone were on par with Apex Legends. The game reached 30 million players in the first 10 days and crossed the 50 million mark in 30 days.
As of June 8, Warzone had over 125 million users who had downloaded and played the game at least once. Activision is now preparing to launch Warzone 2.0 on November 16.
Fortnite
Before becoming a global cultural phenomenon, the battle royale version of Fortnite attracted over 10 million players in the first two weeks since its launch in September 2017. These numbers made Epic Games focus its resources on supporting and developing what will become the biggest hit in its history.
During its first year, Fortnite Battle Royale reached 125 million registered users. The game later approached the 400 million mark before being pulled from the App Store and Google Play. So it is hard to estimate its total player base right now.