Marvel Rivals Soars as Overwatch 2 Steam Player Count Fall

Overwatch 2 Numbers Under 20K After Marvel Rivals’ Launch

OW2 Meets Its Match

Overwatch 2 reportedly hit its lowest player count ever on Steam, following the release of fellow team-based arena shooter Marvel Rivals last December 5th. In the morning of December 6th, Overwatch 2 numbers dropped to 17,591, then dropping once more to the 16,919 mark on December 9th. This is in comparison to Marvel Rivals, who garnered an incredibly massive audience of 184,633 on the 6th and 202,077 on the 9th. In terms of their all-time peaks in player count, Marvel Rivals wins by a landslide with a whopping 480,990 players, surpassing Overwatch 2’s 75,608 peak concurrent players.

Both Overwatch 2 and Marvel Rivals share similar gameplay styles as free-to-play team-based PVP shooter titles with engaging game mechanics, and thus have been endlessly compared to one another since the latter’s release. Unfortunately for Overwatch 2, the game was riddled with negative reviews on Steam, both from Marvel Rivals fans and Overwatch 2 players themselves who were dissatisfied with the overall game, bringing the title’s overall review rating to Mixed. Marvel Rivals, on the other hand, enjoys a Mostly Positive review rating, moving aside the various balancing issues that some reviews have pointed out.

Steam Is A Fraction Of Overwatch 2’s Entire Player Base

However, it’s worthy to note that Steam is not Overwatch 2’s only platform; hence the numbers are only a percentage of the entire player base. The team-based action game is available to play on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and on Blizzard’s own PC gaming platform, Battle.net. Users on Reddit have shared that many players are over at Battle.net instead, as the Steam version of the game was only ported onto the platform in 2023 during the full release, a whole year after its Early Access launch on the Blizzard-owned service. Additionally, Overwatch 2 on any other platform requires a Battle.net account to enable cross-platform matches.

Overwatch 2 also just commenced Season 14, introducing a boatload of content including a new Scottish tank hero named Hazard, as well as a new limited-time mode to play with, and topping it all off with the beginning of the 2024 Winter Wonderland event just in time for the Christmas spirit.

Both Overwatch 2 and Marvel Rivals are available to play on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S for free. Overwatch 2 can also be played on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch.