Overwatch 2’s average Steam player count has dropped 39% since Marvel Rivals was released

Overwatch 2’s average Steam player count has dropped by nearly 40% since the release of Marvel Rivals, a new report has found.

According to SteamDB data, as researched by TheGamer, Overwatch 2‘s average monthly players have dropped noticeably in the past two months.

In September, October and November 2024, the average player count was around 35,000, 34,000 and 32,000 respectively.

However, Marvel Rivals was then released on December 5, and according to SteamDB the average Overwatch 2 player count for December was 25,248, a drop of 21.7%.

SteamDB also notes that in the past 30 days (i.e. January to date), the average has been 19,745, a further 21.8% drop.

While most games see their average player counts naturally drop over a period of time, Overwatch 2 has never seen two drops of more than 20% in consecutive months. Indeed, from July to September 2024 it was seeing the average rise by 4.4%, 17.6% and 2.3% per month.

While it can’t be said for certain that the release of Marvel Rivals directly contributed to the decline in Overwatch 2’s numbers, then, it can’t be argued that the player count has seen a notable dip since Marvel Rivals launched.

Both games are free-to-play team shooters, with Marvel Rivals offering 6v6 gameplay and Overwatch 2 offering 5v5 (as opposed to the original Overwatch, which was also 6v6).

When Marvel Rivals launched its first season in mid-January, it hit 644,269 concurrent players, putting it at number 14 in Steam‘s all-time highest concurrent player counts, outdoing other popular titles like Apex Legends, Path of Exile 2, Helldivers 2 and GTA 5.

In December it enjoyed an average player count of 301,733, and in January to date its average has held steady at 308,258, moree than 15 times that of Overwatch 2.