Long term development Overwatch 2 finally went live with a PvP beta this afternoon. Shortly after its launch, the first Overwatch broke the previous record for total viewership on Twitch in just a few hours.
In honor of the sequel beta, several popular twitch streamers like Lirik, Myth, and most notably xQc streamed Overwatch for the first time. The game peaked at around 450,000 views today, and xQc on its own has amassed over 150,000 Overwatch views.
Overwatch fans have been trying very hard to see if they will be selected for the Overwatch 2 PVP demo. The only way to access the beta key is to watch the streamers collaborate for a certain amount of time while linking their Blizzard battle.net accounts on Twitch. Lucky users can only get the beta PC key until May 17th.
In a tweet from Washington Post’s Nathan Grayson, sources have stated that Overwatch has endured fierce demands from Activision Blizzard for both the sequel and the e-sports league. Of the company Workplace lawsuits are fully reported didn’t help either, and there have been several senior employees leaving the company over the past few years.
With over fifty million units sold in the original Overwatch, Blizzard has plenty left to develop a worthy sequel. For years, Overwatch fans have seen issues ranging from delayed hero releases to viewing Jeff Kaplan, Overwatch’s original game director, leaves the company exactly a year ago.
Christian Angeles is a freelance writer for IGN.
