In what year was Overwatch first released?

Overwatch was first released in 2016, launching worldwide on May 24 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

The release followed a public reveal at BlizzCon in November 2014, a closed beta beginning in October 2015, and an open beta in May 2016. Blizzard reported that nearly 10 million players took part in the open beta, creating substantial attention before the full launch.

Overwatch arrived as a multiplayer hero shooter in which two teams selected characters with different abilities and worked toward map-specific objectives. Unlike many shooters, it did not include a traditional single-player campaign. Its story was instead expanded through character dialogue, animated shorts, digital comics, and other transmedia material.

The Nintendo Switch version came later, on October 15, 2019. The original game's servers were eventually shut down on October 3, 2022, when Overwatch 2 launched in early access the following day. That transition can cause confusion: 2016 refers to the first release of the original Overwatch, not the sequel.