One user on the Overwatch subreddit has pointed out that the game has become the third growing gaming community.

It looks like Overwatch has seen a surge of fan growth in the past few weeks, if Reddit is to be believed. The game has jumped up to third place in the "Top Growing" Gaming subreddit board rankings, just below PCMasterRace and Halo — with Overwatch rising from rank 113. According to replies on the original post made by pok3mngamer on Monday, April 11, this may be in part to the publicity around its sequel, Overwatch 2.

Overwatch 2 Beta Has Attracted a New Wave of Players

While several fans went back and forth about the topic — including a thread comparing the team format switch from six to five as an elimination on Ru Paul's Drag Race — the reason for the rise was clear:

"Im a new player, its because of overwatch 2," user tripikimi wrote.

"I hadn't played OW since Doomfist released. My friends and I got back into it not because of the OW2 beta," Marvelnerd123 wrote, "but honestly because I re-downloaded it as a joke, then another friend did, now the 5 of us have been playing nightly for the past month."

Others mentioned that the game has been picked up by a different demographic — V-tubers — who may have exposed it to a brand new audience. Now, that community has picked it up for the first time enmasse with million-strong streamers leading the charge.

Regardless, it seems that the future of Overwatch could be bright once again. Overwatch 2's beta certainly has a lot riding on it.