The original Overwatch launched on May 24, 2016, meaning the game just recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. To mark the occasion, Blizzard released a video, featuring a number of developers speaking about the past five years and thanking fans for their support.
Kim Horn, a senior game producer on Overwatch, shared a nice story from Overwatch's original announcement at Blizzcon in 2014. "I remember the guy sitting in front of me, putting his hands on his head, yelling, 'Oh my god! Oh my god!' And I thought he was going to have a heart attack right then and there." Associate technical director Tim Ford added, "It's hard to think about this small group of 100-150 game developers, we get together, we make this game, and try our best. We never anticipate. We can't even begin to conceptualize or wrap our head around this notion of over 50 million people on the planet playing our game."
Producer Tracy Kennedy added, "You guys remind us why we're here. Why we create games. There is something really special about a game made by a team that just really loves their community."
Overwatch was developed out of the ashes of Titan, Blizzard's MMO that never materialized. The game launched in May 2016 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC before expanding to Nintendo Switch in October 2019.
A sequel, Overwatch 2, is now in the works. We recently got to see and learn a lot more about the game thanks to a two-hour livestream event. Among other things, we learned that the team size is being reduced to 5v5. Additionally, Blizzard said in a recent Reddit AMA that it has plans for a beta test, cross-play, and possibly an Apex Legends-style ping system.
No release date for Overwatch 2 has been announced, but we do know it's not coming in 2021. The game is believed to be in development for (at least) PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC.
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