Overwatch Beta Attracts 9.7 Million Participants, 9000 Years of Gameplay Logged

How popular was the Overwatch beta? Super popular, according to Activision Blizzard who announced that the team-based hero shooter attracted 9.7 million participants across all platforms, beating out the likes of The Division and Destiny.

37 million matches were played over 4.9 billion minutes by testers, which averages to about 8.4 hours per player and 9000 years of gameplay in total. That’s a lot of Overwatch and naturally, it shattered any internal records Blizzard currently has.

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime stated that, “We’re thrilled that such an incredible number of players from around the globe got a chance to check out Overwatch during the Open Beta. Our mission was to make sure as many console and PC gamers as possible could experience the full game ahead of its launch – the response was overwhelming, and we hope that everyone had a blast.”

Overwatch is out on May 24th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. We hope you’re comfortable with the open beta because the full launch will be pretty much the same thing according to game designer Jeff Kaplan (though lots of post launch content is on the way).