Key recommendations
- The Overwatch Classic mode saw 36% player engagement, a promising sign for its upcoming return in Overwatch 2 Season 14.
- Overwatch Classic brought back 6-player squads and old hero skills, attracting many players.
- 71% of players tried Overwatch Classic on its launch day, showing interest in the original game mode.
With Overwatch 2The initial trial of the Overwatch Classic mode has ended, game director Aaron Keller reveals some promising stats for players that prove the event was a particularly successful effort. Although you have fans Overwatch 2 will have to settle back into the sequel's typical 5v5 matches for now, it looks like they won't have to wait long until Overwatch Classic returns.
One of the most important departures that Overwatch 2 made from its predecessor ditched the traditional 6v6 matchups in favor of smaller 5v5s – a change that was always heavily criticized by many longtime fans for a number of reasons. Only the one-tank-per-team limitation and overall smaller lobby sizes fundamentally influence the ebb and flow of any given battle, and with many of the game's other smaller issues often being traced back to the move to 5-player squads, I inevitably felt that 6v6, in some capacity, will eventually recover.
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Not only did Overwatch Classic bring back 6-player squads for a while, it even brought back old hero abilities from yesteryear, like Hanzo's Scatter Arrow. As the limited-time event ran its three-week course, Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller recently gave the community some insight into how the mod performed via various player stats. Keller stated that Overwatch 2 team is “very pleased with how well Classic has done”, with 36% of all player hours spent in Overwatch Classic when the mode launched in November – a significant level of time investment for an event game mode in Overwatch 2.
Overwatch Classic's engagement numbers bode well for its return in Season 14
This dropped to 4% by the time the limited-time event was nearing its end – stated by Keller to be roughly the standard level of investment for an event mode near the end of its run, although this shows that they are not lacking players. chose to go back to standard 5v5 matches for one reason or another. In addition, Keller said that 71 percent of all active players tried Overwatch Classic at least once on launch day. This shows that even despite the countless new players the free-to-play sequel has attracted, a notable majority of players still have a taste for the original.
The total number of players uploading the daily mode dropped to around 11% as the event ended – still a decent chunk of players and enough to make Overwatch Classic the fourth most popular game mode in Overwatch 2 at the time. Fans can look forward to the return of Overwatch Classic sometime in Season 14, and while the mode doesn't have a set return date yet, Keller claims that players can expect Classic to return soon.