Consecutive Overwatch players surpass 25 million

Last week, on the official Overwatch Twitter page, Blizzard announced that consecutive Overwatch players had reached 25 million and counting. The tweet ends by inviting those who haven’t taken the plunge into the game yet to take up the challenge.

This news comes just two days after the game’s latest limited-time event is released, Year of the Rooster. This event introduces new variants of a number of maps, decorating them in the vein of Chinese New Year, which is of course the inspiration for this live event. Year of the Rooster also adds new cosmetic items to collect, ranging from skins and voiceover snippets, to new player emblems and sprays. Any Overwatch fans that pride themselves on collecting such items will need to play, win, and level up in the new Arcade mode in order to acquire as many cosmetic items as possible before it ends on February 13th.

The world needs heroes, and over 25 MILLION have answered the call!

The fight for the future isn't over yet, though… Are you with us? pic.twitter.com/aVoON7QwMB

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) January 26, 2017

The Year of the Rooster has also added an entirely new game mode called Capture the Rooster. This mode is simply a variation of Capture the Flag, a popular multiplayer mode used in most first person shooter multiplayer games. Essentially players must reach the enemy team’s base, stand near their flag for a few seconds, in order to steal it, and then run back to their own flag to score a point. If a player is killed while holding the flag, the enemy team can claim it back if a teammate doesn’t pick it back up first.

The new mode isn’t simply a copy and paste of a classic game mode however. In Overwatch each hero has different abilities, and some lend themselves incredibly well to this mode. Lucio, for example, is able to boost his and surrounding player’s speed for a limited time. While playing I found this mode to be useful once I, or a teammate, had take the enemy flag, aiding us in returning to score a point much faster, and dodge enemy fire at the same time.

Overwatch continues to be an engrossing and enjoyable game, not least for the continuous stream of new content in the form of game modes, maps, cosmetic items, and even heroes, all for free. The eagerly anticipated Overwatch League, an eSports league specifically for Overwatch, is also adding to the excitement surrounding the game, fuelling the steady influx of new players as it does in other leagues, such as DOTA 2.