Overwatch releasing a day early at US stores

US gamers who intend to buy the physical version of Blizzard’s Overwatch will be able to get their hands on the game a day early.

The game officially launches on May 24th, but GameSpot reports that Best Buy has been informing its customers that they will be able to grab their copies on May 23rd. GameStop and Amazon have been telling its customers the same.

Here’s the kicker, however – while the game will be available early, the servers won’t be turned on until the official release on May 24th.

"We would like for all of the players to be ready to dive straight into the action when the servers go live, so retailers are going to begin selling the game when their stores open on May 23rd," Blizzard confirmed.

In effect this is pretty similar to how digital buyers are able to pre-download a game ahead of release so they’re ready to get going the moment things go live.

Blizzard recently saw a record-breaking number of gamers playing its Overwatch beta. The title welcomed 9.7m, making it Blizzard’s biggest ever beta. Not only that – 4.9bn minutes (more than 81m hours) were played.