Blizzard Posts ‘Overwatch’ Open Beta Stats And They’re Staggering

It’s safe to say that the recent Overwatch open beta from developer Blizzard was a success. The open beta ran for around seven days and within those days Blizzard was able to log a staggering amount of statistics for Overwatch players, which they released today in a blog post on their site.

According to the post, Overwatch players logged more than 4.9 billion minutes, which Blizzard says equates to about 81 million hours. Across the seven days, Overwatch saw more than 9.7 million players across the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 versions of the beta in over 190 countries worldwide. Blizzard released an Overwatch infographic which details some of the most interesting statistics collected over the course of the seven day open beta.

Some of the stats that jump out from the Overwatch beta are obviously the time played and the sheer amount of people participating in the beta itself. It’s interesting to think of 9.7 million people playing the beta, right around the same time competitor 2K Games’ Battleborn released. It would incredibly interesting to see whether or not the Overwatch beta impacted the release numbers of Battleborn. The Escapist reported that, according to Battleborn creative director Randy Varnell, the sales were tracking a “little ahead of Borderlands,” but really didn’t provide any hard numbers or data to quantify that statement.

Thirty-seven million matches of Overwatch were played over seven days in the open beta, with the average match lengths running between six to nine minutes long, depending on the game mode. Surprisingly enough, Bastion, which has become a meme overnight seemingly due to the character frequently being awarded the “Play of the Game,” isn’t included among the Most Picked Heroes. However, the infographic does point out that Overwatch players destroyed 326 million Bastion units, though no telling how many of those were not in turret form.

Other stats include damage dealt and healing done, as well as how many loot boxes Overwatch players earned as a result of their prowess in the game. Players also used one of Overwatch’s more interesting features and swapped out heroes mid-game 271 million times. Many games make you stick with one hero throughout the entirety of the match, but Overwatch invites players to swap out heroes when a new strategy might need to be employed to combat your enemy.

Overwatch is one of the most hyped games set to release thus far in 2016. Blizzard is famed as an incredible developer who has put together some of the most popular games on the planet such as World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Starcraft and more. Overwatch, which will launch simultaneously on PC and current gen consoles, aims to add an eSport FPS to Blizzard’s portfolio, and if the popularity of the open beta is any indication, it will do just that. By all accounts as well, regardless of platform, you’re going to get a pretty solid running game, as the beta analysis by Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry points out.

Overwatch, which was unveiled at BlizzCon 2014, came on the heels of the cancelled Titan MMO that Blizzard was working on previously. Overwatch, while sharing some continuity with Titan, is not the former game and the games are totally separate. Overwatch is slated to release on May 24, though your actual release time may be different depending on your time zone or region. Check out the above image from Overwatch’s official launch post to see when the game should release in your region, or head over to their page to see a full breakdown of launch times.

[Image via Blizzard]