Marking 10 years of Overwatch with deep dive of world records and confusing name changes

Sources tell me that Overwatch is a decade old this weekend, although this is complicated by the fact that Overwatch is actually Overwatch 2, and what was Overwatch is now Overwatch Classic, which is not to be confused with Overwatch. Which is to say: Blizzard Entertainment’s hero shooter has turned 10. And one or both of them have a few world records under their belt. Or possibly belts. 

I will be less obtuse. Overwatch came out in 2016, followed by a sequel, Overwatch 2, in 2023. As is the way with live service games, the sequel was largely designed to replace the original and, in February this year, it did so quite literally. Overwatch 2 is now officially named Overwatch. Either way, Overwatch as a thing, a brand, a gestalt experience, has hit an anniversary milestone.

This is all basically fine for anyone who plays or works on the game, but quite annoying if you are, say, someone who helps maintain a database of achievements related to specific videogames. I realize this is a low percenter problem, but I’ve got a lot of entries to open and update for the sake of a single numeral now. On the bright side, I’ve found some fun records in there. 

I’m particularly taken by Dale “Bacontotem” Brown, who deliberately tanked his rank in Overwatch Classic’s competitive mode (that’s the first game, keep up) until he became the first Overwatch player to achieve rank “zero” on 24 August 2016. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because like the new version, the first game had quite a fine-tuned match-making system, and especially low-rated players received a skill bonus to give them a leg up. 

It took Dale weeks of concentrated bad work, playing as the archer Hanzo. “I was on PC playing at a lower resolution, at a 30-frames-per-second cap, and on a console controller with all the settings shifted down to the absolute minimum so that my response time would be super low and horrible,” he told Kotaku. 

I cannot emphasize the depth of my respect for Dale enough. He put more effort into sucking than I managed to put into being good (I mostly mained Mercy or Lúcio, if you want your own jokes).

At the other end of the scale, of course, are the first Overwatch world champions. The inaugural Overwatch World Cup was part of 2016’s BlizzCon event (a week-long annual festival of all things Blizzard Entertainment, usually taking place in late summer or early autumn), and South Korea absolutely dominated the other 16 nations taking part. They didn’t lose a single map. 

That’s not hugely surprising, as South Korea is a nation of esports enthusiasts, and the lists of top esports players for both Overwatch Classic and Overwatch are dominated by the South Korean flag. Currently, Overwatch’s highest earning player is Choi “MER1T” Tae Min, who’s made $375,451 (£279,923) by being very, very good at a videogame for the last three years. I’m afraid that for the vast majority of people, his exceptional success is not a valid argument against getting off the computer and going to bed when your mum tells you to. 

Read about more gaming records in our dedicated section.

Neither is “playing a videogame for a very long time”, although you would get my approval, specifically. I’ve come to view the videogame marathon records as the quiet classic of the game record lists. Overwatch has an impressive one partly because it’s a team game. Any marathon of it has to involve not just one person with an extreme aptitude for staying awake, but several. Thus the record for longest videogame marathon playing Overwatch has been held since 25 February 2017, when Samuel Hibbert, Jay Smith, Tome Leight and James Williams, all from the UK, played it for a hair over 24 hours (their precise time is 24 hours 14 seconds).  

I won’t get into the speedrunning records because the nature of them means they’ll probably have changed since you started reading this, but if you’ll allow me to careen a terrible segue through this paragraph, you know who’s fast? The character Tracer, that’s who.

Her somewhat grating cock-er-nee accent and uncontroversial orange leggings are Overwatch originals, having been in the series right from the start. But her first appearance in a game was actually as a playable character in Heroes of the Storm, a Blizzard MOBA (that’s a “multiplayer online battle arena” if you’re feeling fancy) that first came out in 2015, and features a lot of characters crossing over from other franchises. Tracer was, essentially, a teaser for the impending launch of Overwatch Classic. 

She’s also the first LGBT+ Hero in Overwatch (and, to get very specific, the first lesbian character in a multiplayer FPS), after an extremely cute Christmas comic from December 2016 revealed her sharing presents and smooching her girlfriend Emily. Tracer has the vibes of a very last minute shopper, but I hope she and Emily remain happy together for the next 10 years of Overwatch. 

See you then, when I will doubtless be cross that I have to rejig the records again because Overwatch 4 has been renamed NuOverwatch, and Overwatch 3 is Over 2: The Watch.