• A wealth of content creators (252K), including well-known personalities such as Xqc, drew in a varied audience (over 9M unique viewers)
• Overwatch 2 attracted new viewers to the franchise, with nearly 3 in 5 not having watched any Overwatch content prior to the sequel’s release
• None of the top 10 creators for the first week of Overwatch 2 content were strictly Overwatch players, which helped to broaden the audience
• The game that Overwatch 2 week one viewers were watching the most before the title’s release was Valorant, which held a 74% overlap with the Overwatch 2 audience
• The anticipation behind the release of Overwatch 2 helped increase viewership – many who tuned in also took part in other big Twitch moments like when Elden Ring (58%) came out or the re-launch of Fall Guys (53%)

In its first post-release week on Twitch, Overwatch 2 snagged 9M unique viewers across 252K channels on Twitch, who consumed 40M hours of content. What's more, the majority of viewers who tuned in are not just fans of the shooter genre (74% of viewers also watched Valorant content so far in 2022), but they also enjoy many of the mainstay titles on Twitch including League of Legends and Minecraft. This broad-based support proves that Activision-Blizzard's newest entry to the franchise can succeed in what is an otherwise crowded gaming category.

Overwatch 2 attracted new viewers to the franchise, with nearly 3 in 5 not having watched any Overwatch content prior to the sequel’s release. The game that Overwatch 2 viewers were watching the most before the title’s launch was Valorant, which held a 74% overlap with the Overwatch 2 audience. The audience for Overwatch 2 came from all corners of Twitch, however, and while games in the shooter category were prominently featured in their watch history, such as Apex Legends (60%) and Fortnite (59%), other popular titles were present as well. For example, the week one viewers for Overwatch 2 enjoy taking part in the trends of Twitch, with 58% having watched Elden Ring content during 2022 and 53% having watched some Fall Guys content in the same period.

With three new characters, reworked combat abilities and smaller teams, Overwatch 2 seeks to emphasize exciting gameplay over character selection, which was an important aspect of the original. Going by hours watched, these changes appealed to viewers, whose consumption of Overwatch 2 on Twitch peaked over the weekend, when the title racked up almost half of its 40M hours watched, with over 10M on Saturday and over 8M on Sunday. Saturday night was when the game reached its peak of 605K viewers on Twitch, putting it ahead of other titles like League of Legends, Valorant and Grand Theft Auto V. Viewers over the weekend got rewarded for their attention with special in-game items for the new support character in Overwatch 2. Tuning into streams where drops were enabled allowed viewers to cash in on their hours spent watching the title.

Some channels benefitted from these viewers more than others. Most of the top streamers by AMA are variety streamers who were checking out Overwatch 2 because it was a highly anticipated sequel to a staple team shooter. Some of them made their name by playing Overwatch, like Xqc and Sinatraa. None of the top creators for the week were exclusively Overwatch streamers, but that means they brought their large audiences to Overwatch 2 exposing potential new viewers to the game.

As Activision-Blizzard looks toward building on Overwatch 2's momentum among viewers and players alike, it will likely do so by continuing to draw from its wide and diverse audience. With a full content calendar and a PVE mode on the horizon, Overwatch 2 will likely be a contender for a top spot on Twitch in the coming months.

The data in this article was collected through the Vindex Intelligence Platform. Vindex Intelligence Platform is the premiere measurement solution of the attention economy across gaming, streaming, social, and community, that delivers robust analytics and actionable insights focused on engagement, media consumption, and player activity trends.