How Many People Play Overwatch? Player Count Tracker (2022)

Contents

• 1

  Player count in 2026

• 2

  All-time player count peak

• 3

  Player count compared to other games

• 4

  Is Overwatch dying?

Overwatch is in the midst of a resurgence thanks to the rebrand and the launch of Season 1 with five new heroes, but just how many people are playing in 2026?

As with any multiplayer title, Overwatch needs to maintain a healthy player base to survive against other online games like Fortnite, Warzone, and even its most recent competitor, Marvel Rivals.

It has not always been easy, especially with the ups and downs of how the PvE mode was handled, but the consistent updates and reprioritization of PvP means that it has maintained a core community of players. Now, with a full year of content laid out, an annual narrative arc, and 10 new heroes slated for 2026, there’s plenty to be excited about again.

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Player count in 2026

Overwatch is estimated to have attracted 15 million players in January, according to Active Player, a big decrease from last month’s estimate, which sat at a little under 16 million in December.

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Below, you can find the average player count across the past few months to see how this compares:

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Blizzard doesn’t publicize the exact number of players across all editions of the game, so we have to turn to a third party to make an estimate. However, it’s worth noting that Active Player uses educated guesses to discover the player count, so while it offers a decent indicator, these numbers are by no means perfect.

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However, this is just part of the story. As of February 8, 2026, Overwatch is turning things around, at least on PC.

Ahead of the big Season 1 update set for February 10, Overwatch climbed to its second biggest concurrent player count of all time on Steam, reaching 69,881 players all at once. This falls just six thousand short of the all-time record.

It’s a significant rebound, and we’re seeing no signs of it slowing down anytime soon, with the jam-packed Season 1 update set to attract even more players.

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Related

How many people play World of Warcraft in 2026?

How many people play Warzone? Player count in 2026

How many people play Deadlock? Player count in 2026

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All-time player count peak

Getting a real all-time peak player count is hard because we don’t have any full, publicly viewable data unless Blizzard provides it.

As for its peak numbers, Blizzard revealed on October 14, 2022, that 25 million players had played Overwatch in the first 10 days of the servers going live. Other than that, the devs have yet to publicize any other figures since then.

The last update known sales number for Overwatch was 50 million in 2022 before transitioning to the sequel, and it looks like the free-to-play model has drastically increased its player base since then.

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Player count compared to other games

As a competitive hero shooter, you’d naturally want to compare its player base to others, but once again, it’s hard to get an accurate figure due to its multitude of platforms and Blizzard’s reticence on revealing the numbers.

However, the best we can do is compare its numbers on Steam. All of the numbers below are according to SteamCharts:

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Game	30-day average
Overwatch	27,966
Counter-Strike 2	1,060,657
Team Fortress 2	48,360
Marvel Rivals	90,431
Call of Duty	33,823
Rainbow Six Siege	46,692

As we’ve mentioned above, this is all just Steam numbers, so it’s hard to say this is an accurate measurement. If anything, this may show that the player base just doesn’t use Steam all that much.

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Battle.net is the preferred platform for most Overwatch players, as the game has been available there from the very beginning. Meanwhile, despite being an Activision-Blizzard title, CoD has always been released on Steam, so it’s no surprise its average and peak numbers are higher, especially after the launch of Black Ops 7 in November 2025.

So overall, it’s hard to determine if it is bigger than its contemporaries unless Blizzard provides a more in-depth look at its numbers.

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Is Overwatch dying?

While Overwatch was certainly struggling during Marvel Rivals’ peak, Blizzard has clearly course-corrected in 2026. Now, it’s enjoying a renaissance as players flock back to Overwatch once again.

You may be looking at SteamCharts and think the game is struggling in comparison to many other shooters, but be mindful that the numbers are only from Steam.

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Since Overwatch is on multiple platforms, and with most of its player base using Battle.net when on PC, the peak players that SteamCharts recorded in the past month are way off from the full story.

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Blizzard

Overwatch’s stats on Steam tell just one part of the story.

This is why we’ve decided to use Active Player as the closest estimate to the game’s real count, but it, too, may be far off its actual numbers.

The only way we can truly know how many people are actually playing Overwatch is if Blizzard reveals it; however, they are very private with that information, so it’s unlikely we’ll ever get a real answer.

So, is Overwatch dead? The simple answer is no, as we’ve discussed, the numbers are most likely in the millions every week, but we just don’t have an accurate figure. However, make no mistake, other games like Marvel Rivals and Deadlock have been nipping at its heels.

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We’ll keep this page updated monthly to bring you the latest Overwatch player count stats. Check out how it compares to that of Valorant, Apex Legends, Deadlock, and Destiny 2.