Overwatch Is Roaring Back On Steam After Massive Season 1 Patch

For the first time in years, I had a full five-stack in Overwatch. Friends who had dropped Blizzard’s hero shooter years before and hadn’t given the game so much as a glance were finally back after the company added five new heroes, restructured its seasonal rollout to incorporate story, and dropped that pesky 2 from the title. They weren’t the only ones, either. Overwatch reached a new all-time peak on Steam last night with over 165,000 concurrent players logging in on the launcher. Not bad considering it was, at one point, one of the lowest-reviewed games on the platform.

That said, Overwatch is a multiplatform game, and a lot of PC players use Battle.net anyway, so that’s only a small slice of the people who flooded the servers yesterday. I actually had to wait in a queue for probably the first time since Overwatch 2’s launch in 2022. But once I got in, I immediately queued up as my longtime mains while everyone else was trying out the new heroes like a hydrogen bomb descending upon a coughing baby. I kid, mostly. I did put in a fair bit of time as Mizuki, the new support who throws his not-magic hat around the field to heal his teammates. Thankfully, the first night wasn’t just mirror matches of the five new heroes the whole time, as a lot of people just logged on to play as their main for a few matches.

But in the midst of all those matches, my friends who had long been skeptics of Overwatch’s return in a post-PvE cancelation world were hootin’, hollerin’, and admitting that the game “might be good” again. To which I say, I told you so. I’m glad to see so many people coming back and seeing how Blizzard managed to salvage a game after years of mismanagement and corporate sabotage. 

Sure, we’re probably in a honeymoon phase. The new heroes have injected a bunch of chaos into the mix, and viral clips of ridiculous plays with the tether-sporting Jetpack Cat are spreading like wildfire. When the dust settles, we’ll probably talk about hero balance again, and Blizzard may rein in some of these antics, but it feels good to see Overwatch so reinvigorated all at once. This isn’t solely a result of the influx of new playable heroes, but also of the fact that Blizzard is pretty committed to its story integration. We’ve gotten what feel like weekly lore updates, and even gotten another audio drama starring Freja and newcomer Emre that is actually feeding into the internal push and pull between Vendetta and those who have been part of the terrorist organization Talon.

Fans have been discovering new layers to characters’ relationships through both the lore drops and the new dialogue before matches. There’s a lot of interpersonal drama with actual momentum now, with characters talking to each other about the state of the world after Vendetta defeated Doomfist, and maps like Watchpoint Gibraltar and Colesseo changing things in the environment and layout as part of the current narrative. 

Some of the best character stuff is, unsurprisingly given the theme of the season, coming from the characters who have defected from Talon. Sombra, Reaper, and Widowmaker are on the run after Vendetta’s hostile takeover, and dialogue implies that they’re all part of a tenuous partnership without the Talon banner uniting them. 

New Widowmaker and Sombra interaction!

"Not like I didn't warn the boss, but hard to believe Vendetta is starting a war." pic.twitter.com/i4O5BjkXqz

— Shroomiiee (@mushroomiiee) February 11, 2026

One of the most devastating subplots revealed in the game’s dialogue is Sigma’s. The mad scientist character has been conspicuously absent from the season’s cinematic, comic, and audio dramas, but he is also a member of Talon. However, it sounds like Vendetta views him more as a danger to be held captive, and he misses his friend Sombra, who had to cut and run. If Sigma kills Sombra in a match, he utters a devastated “But I still need you,” or solemnly wonders where his friend has gone. That shit hurts real good. The Overwatch website has updated several of its heroes’ story blurbs and confirms that Sombra is “keeping a careful eye” on Talon while Sigma is imprisoned, so maybe a jailbreak is in order later down the season?

So remember how Sigma kinda got no mentions during the setup for this new season besides a new lore blurb today? Turns out…he is not happy @OW2voicelines

RELEASE MY GOAT! RELEASE HIM pic.twitter.com/iJB0hhFz5C

— Jetpack Uniwatch (@UniwatchOW) February 11, 2026

It’s not all angst, though. The slew of new hero interactions is giving fans a lot to work with in terms of understanding new, budding relationships. Where once Overwatch said shipping wasn’t a priority in its worldbuilding, there are a bunch of characters with romantic tension in 2026, and that rocks, actually. Lifeweaver and Baptiste feel like they blazed a trail for heroes to start flirting in pre-matches, and now that the story actually has momentum, maybe ships like Wuyang and Juno or Kiriko and Mizuki can go somewhere. We’re already getting a lot of Freja and Emre, who seem to be canonically ex-lovers, so let’s spread the love, Blizzard. Except for Soldier: 76, who will likely remain a yearner.

BYE MILKYWAVE IS REAL, I TOLLDDD U BRUH I TOLLDD UUUU #milkywave pic.twitter.com/DTF7gppUNV

— korti 🍪 (@PPYCH0W) February 11, 2026

Overall, it’s kind of wild to feel like there’s reason to hope for Overwatch again. The PvE campaign didn’t pan out, but the game we have feels more focused and dedicated to delivering a story with momentum, an ever-evolving competitive game with new heroes shaking things up every season, and in-game events to keep people showing up all year. It feels like we’re back in 2016 when the possibilities seemed endless. Here’s hoping Blizzard makes the most of this fresh start.