Overwatch’s Season 1 didn’t fizzle — concurrent peaks have climbed every week

Season 1’s relaunch is doing what most live-service patches can’t: growing player peaks, not losing them

Something rare is happening in multiplayer games: the post-update cliff hasn’t appeared. Overwatch’s Season 1 relaunch – five new heroes, a UI overhaul, free lootboxes and double XP – produced an initial Steam peak above 165,000 at launch and then kept climbing on subsequent weekends. Rather than the expected drop-off, Steam community and analytics numbers show weekly peak growth, which is the clearest signal yet that Blizzard’s reset is sticking.

Key takeaways

• Steam concurrent peaks rose after launch: 165,651 (launch), 122,715 (first weekend), then 136,582 during Feb 20-22 – not a one-off spike (Steam community reporting).
• Blizzard paired content with giveaways (double XP, free lootboxes) and platform visibility on Xbox, which helped sustain and expand returning players.
• Jetpack Cat became a meme-driven mascot and required immediate balance action; a hotfix and mid-season rework are already planned (Numerama reporting).
• Blizzard is already tweaking hero kits (Mercy buffs teased for Season 2 by developers in interviews), signalling active post-launch tuning rather than a “set it and forget it” drop.

Why the numbers matter — and why they’re not just hype

Most updates spike interest the first weekend and then bleed players the next week. Overwatch has done the opposite: peak concurrent players on Steam rose week-over-week after the Season 1 rollout. Steam’s own community posts track a peak above 165k on launch day, a 122k first-weekend high, then a 136k peak the following weekend — and broader estimates show monthly active players climbing toward ~18 million, up roughly 22% month over month. Those aren’t tiny blips. They’re sustained lifts that indicate returning players are sticking around long enough to be counted again.

That matters because revivals are rarely about a single cool hero or a marketing push. They require a mix of new toys, accessible reasons to come back (free rewards, double XP), and an active developer response to problems. Blizzard delivered all three this month.

The uncomfortable bit the PR deck hoped you’d skip

Jetpack Cat is adorable, viral, and also a balance problem. Blizzard leaned into the meme for marketing, but the same perks that make the hero fun — notably two aggressive passive perks that blurred roles between support and damage — quickly became match-warping. Numerama reports Blizzard acknowledged the issue and scheduled a week-1 hotfix followed by a mid-season tweak to remove one perk and add a new ability. That’s good responsiveness. It’s also reality: some of this player growth was engineered with a mascot and amplified with giveaways, and the game needed immediate tuning to turn traffic into long-term retention.

What the sources disagree on — and what they agree on

There’s broad agreement across Steam community reporting, GamesRadar+ interviews, and French outlets like Numerama: Season 1 revived interest and Blizzard is actively balancing. The only real divergence is emphasis. Steam posts and analytics focus on the raw lift in concurrent peaks; GamesRadar+ uses the moment to highlight deeper balance work coming for icons like Mercy; Numerama is more cultural, tracking the meme machine around Jetpack Cat and community reactions. Together they form a single picture: a successful relaunch that’s both social and surgical.

The question I’d ask Blizzard if I had one minute with PR

“How many of these returning players are still active three weeks from launch if you pause the giveaways?” The company can and should celebrate peak numbers, but retention beyond promotional windows is the metric that separates marketing wins from sustainable revivals.

What to watch next

• Late-February hotfixes for Jetpack Cat. If the rework calms bans in ranked and drops ban rates, the player boost looks healthier; if not, expect churn.
• Season 2 Mercy changes (developer Alec Dawson told GamesRadar+ they’ll move Flash Heal to Mercy’s base kit). Will this fix support meta or just shuffle it?
• Platform-wide tallies: Steam is visible, but Battle.net plus consoles likely hold the bulk of players. Look for Blizzard or third-party trackers to publish multi-platform concurrent figures.
• How long giveaways last. Double XP and free lootboxes pulled in lapsed players — retention after these promos stop will be the real test.

TL;DR

Overwatch’s Season 1 relaunch has produced rising concurrent peaks week over week, backed by five new heroes, platform visibility and developer giveaways. The revival is real enough to require immediate balance fixes (hello, Jetpack Cat) and longer-term tuning (Mercy updates). Watch the mid-season rework and post-promotional retention to see if this becomes a lasting comeback or a very well-executed weekend party.