Overwatch 2’s Declining Player Numbers Are ‘Nothing Concerning,’ Blizzard Says

In its most up-to-date Q2 2023 earnings launch, Activision Blizzard reported that Overwatch 2 “engagement and player investment” had declined over the previous quarter. Based on Overwatch 2 government producer Jared Neuss, the falling participant numbers are “nothing concerning” and needs to be handled as “a normal ebb and flow of players.”

Overwatch 2: Invasion is predicted to spice up participant numbers

Overwatch 2: Invasion is the sport’s sixth season and launched yesterday, August 10. Amongst the brand new content material is a brand new hero Illari, a brand new Flashpoint sport mode, the premium Invasion story missions, and a brand new battle go. Throughout the identical earnings launch, the writer defined the way it was anticipating the biggest seasonal replace but to spice up the decrease participant numbers. Nonetheless, Neuss downplayed that this huge season was some form of do-or-die second for the shooter in an interview with IGN and extra of the crew determining how you can tempo its seasonal choices.

There’s this attention-grabbing factor about how we stacked a bunch of content material on Overwatch 2 Invasion. We did that as a result of we had been experimenting with totally different seasonal constructions, and one of many issues we actually needed to strive was, what if we simply put all this huge stuff, these superior additions, and totally different expressions of the sport collectively?

That basically isn’t like a, ‘oh there’s a lot using on this’ sort of a factor for us. For us it’s actually about, what does an excellent season appear like? We’ve tried a bunch of stuff, proper? We tried a really thematic strategy with Season 5. We’ve tried various things in Season 2 and three.

It’s much less about, ‘is there all this stuff riding on Overwatch 2: Invasion?’ and extra about, ‘what do we think is the right rhythm and cadence, and how do we create these big moments for players?’

He additionally went on to say the crew isn’t involved by what he considers to be the traditional fluctuation in participant numbers for a free-to-play sport.

The declining stuff is principally, we’re a free-to-play sport and it is rather simple to each come to the sport and test it out, and to depart to take a look at different stuff,” Neuss mentioned. “We see a standard ebb and circulate of gamers. There’s nothing regarding to me or the crew about any of that.

Sadly for Blizzard, participant response to the sport has not gotten considerably higher with Season 6. Overwatch 2 launched on Steam on August 10 and shortly garnered an “Overwhelmingly Negative” ranking from gamers. The most typical criticism is the lack of the promised PvE mode, which was downscaled to make way for the smaller story missions. The cost of the story missions and limited ways players can unlock heroes are two different sizeable complaints being leveled on the sequel.