It’s the winter holidays, and if the amount of free games and terrific deals wasn’t enough for you, the popular multiplayer shooter Overwatch is completely free to play until January 4th 2021. It’s also on discount too for both the Standard and Legendary editions as part of the Blizzard Holiday Sale.

It seemed a little ludicrous when the idea was first mooted a few weeks ago but live service online shooter Overwatch will be getting a proper numbered sequel. Overwatch 2 was announced during BlizzCon 2019 this weekend, dishing up an engine upgrade with visual enhancements, extensive PvE story missions, new heroes, and a multiplayer mode call Push.

It felt like pie in the sky stuff but ESPN, of all places, claims it’s got its hands on documentation regarding Overwatch 2. 

BlizzCon 2019 is shaping up to one heck of an event. I’m probably not alone in saying I haven’t looked forward to a BlizzCon this much since, well, forever. Who knew the games would end up becoming secondary entertainment at a gaming conference? 

The Belgian Gaming Commission has followed in the footsteps of the Dutch authorities and declared that some loot boxes are in violation of gambling laws. The Gaming Commission analyses the loot boxes found in Star Wars Battlefront 2, FIFA 18, Overwatch, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, arriving at the conclusion that players are being misled and these loot crates present a danger to mental health.

Blizzard’s career page is always a veritable treasure trove of information, acting as informal PR agent to the developer's comings and goings. This time around a number of positions have opened up in regards to a new Overwatch project. They’re looking for interns to work at Blizzard during Summer 2018, including a Generalist artist with a “knowledge and understanding of the Overwatch universe.”

The global video games market has continued to balloon, growing 12% year-on-year for the month of June. This is offset somewhat by the PC sector, which has shrunk 16% after peaking high last year with the arrival of Overwatch. Social game revenue has also shrunk, dropping 5%, contrasted against a burgeoning mobile sector that still represents the biggest area of growth, gaining 17% revenue year-on-year.

Market analyst SuperData believes that Destiny 2 will be the biggest game on PC since Overwatch. Based on its own analytics-based metrics system, they predict more than three million copies of Destiny 2 will be sold within its first three months on sale. In total, they reckon digital sales in the first three months will be between 4 and 5 million copies on PC and consoles combined. Remember as well that the PC launch of Destiny 2 is some six weeks later than the console version.

Overwatch fans will be all too aware that Blizzard is hosting a one-year anniversary event for the best-selling first-person shooter. The anniversary event comes loaded with a huge assortment of cosmetic items and eleven Legendary skins, all of which are only unlockable in this timed event which runs until June 12nd. Should your inner OCD be tempting you into trying to unlock them all, you may want to stop right there. Reddit user ‘mynameismunka’ has been crunching the numbers and calculated that there aren't enough hours to possibly grind for Overwatch’s anniversary skins before the event is over.

In typical Blizzard form, Overwatch isn’t a graphical powerhouse. It makes up for this by oozing style. A style you either love or hate, but a style all the same. Blizzard’s aim with this was to get Overwatch running on as wide a range of PCs as possible, with the development team aiming to get it up and running on Intel integrated graphics in particular.

When it comes to Blizzard, it pays to never underestimate their astounding capacity for success. Overwatch has came, it’s seen, and it’s well and truly conquered the gaming landscape. Blizzard has now announced that there are more than 25 million Overwatch players spread across all three platforms, which truly is a monumental achievement in the span of eight months.