All it took was a kitty. Take note, other games.
Overwatch just had its biggest surge on Steam since it launched on the service, following an incredibly successful showcase for its upcoming season.
It was a pretty dark time for Overwatch. The "betrayal" became part of the game's brand, which saw its popularity wane as fans disconnected and explored other, similar titles.
Overwatch 2 soldiered on, though, leaning more heavily into experimental modes and new gameplay systems and features. Its new third-person Stadium mode has been generally well received, and new heroes like Juno, Sojourn, and Mauga became staples. But Blizzard recently showed that the aging shooter still has a lot more in the tank.
Overwatch dropped all pretense recently, removing the "2" from its branding, and effectively re-launching its entire season system with a year-long event dubbed the Reign of Talon, detailed in the video above. Comics, animated shorts, and short stories will add more context to the game's world, but more importantly, the game will now have a kitty.
Overwatch's Reign of Talon Season 1 drops on February 10, 2026, and it contains not one, not two, but five new heroes to choose from, including the viral hit Jetpack Cat support hero. Jetpack Cat (named Fika) was previously teased in scrapped concept art almost a decade ago.
The sheer volume of new features and new content on the way to Overwatch as a result of this un-branding has seen interest in the game surge, putting it above even Call of Duty and Battlefield 6 on Steam as of writing. This is before the season is even actually live.
Of course, most Call of Duty and Overwatch players actually play the game on platforms other than Steam. Overwatch on PC is by far most popular on Battle.net, Blizzard figures have told me in the past. It also enjoys healthy player bases on consoles like PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. It potentially makes the Steam stats all the more impressive, considering Steam is definitively the primary platform for Battlefield 6 on PC — which was 2025's best-selling game. Overwatch 2 still has a ways to go towards beating primary competitor Marvel's Rivals on Steam, but Reign of Talon Season 1 isn't even live just yet.
Overwatch had a difficult history on Steam. When it launched there, it was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews as backlash to the "Overwatch 2" cancelled features dogged the game. Even now, it sits at "Mostly Negative" reviews, with "Mixed" under most-recent reviews. Most of the reviews aren't actually about the game, and have instead been used as a sounding board to vent issues about Blizzard's monetization schemes, its mismanagement of fan expectations, and most of all, its 2021 lawsuits pertaining to creating an unsafe working environment for women.
Blizzard of 2026 is not the Blizzard of the past. The firm now sits separately within the Microsoft gaming structure, run by NFL tech alumni Johanna Faries, who by all accounts is well-liked by its staffers.
Once upon a time, Blizzard was almost universally loved by PC gamers. It felt like the studio could do no wrong in the StarCraft, Warcraft 3, Diablo 2 era. After merging with Activision, for a long time it felt like the studio had completely lost its soul. The darkest times seem firmly behind it.
Even if I have some reservations of my own as a long time fan of games like Warcraft and Diablo, Blizzard seems like its on the right path as it enters its 25th year. BlizzCon 2026 should be very interesting indeed.
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