Last week, Blizzard Entertainment hosted the second of its flurry of showcases to kick off 2026 with an Overwatch Spotlight, digging into the future of the game and everything players can expect for the coming year. Outside of the official name change back to just ‘Overwatch,’ we got a look at everything coming in Season 1: Reign of Talon, which has officially gone live.
The showcase clearly reinvigorated the Overwatch community, because not only did the game have its “biggest weekend by player count in over a year,” according to a press release after the showcase, but the launch of the new season has driven it to reach a new peak concurrent player count on Steam. At the time of this writing, Overwatch has reached 107,004 concurrent players on Steam, stomping the previous peak of 75,608 players that came when Overwatch (then Overwatch 2) arrived on Steam in 2023.
Across 2026, Blizzard will add a total of 10 new heroes to the game, with five of those heroes all arriving in Season 1. The five new heroes are Domina (Tank), Emre (Damage), Mizuki (Support), Anran (Damage), and Jetpack Cat (Support).
The classes for each hero will, of course, be recognizable for veteran players, but it’s worth remembering that today’s update and the arrival of Season 1 also introduce several mechanical changes, like the introduction of sub-classes that all heroes are categorized into on top of their Support, Damage, and Tank classes. If you want a refresher on more of the mechanical changes and the UI/UX changes coming in today’s update, check out our breakdown of everything that came out of the Overwatch Spotlight.
There’s also the introduction of a new narrative structure, which sees the story of each hero unfold through cinematics, animated comics, in-game events, and map updates. The first cinematic shows Vendetta defeating Doomfist, which you can check out below if you missed it during the Spotlight.
For more on what’s new from Blizzard, check out our full breakdown of the World of Warcraft: State of Azeroth showcase.