One advantage of buying digital games in recent years has been the ability to preinstall the game ahead of the release date. That way, players can dive into the game the exact moment it's released and the servers go live.
That hasn't been the case with physical games. Even if you're to buy the game at midnight and rush home as soon as possible, those who bought digitally will likely have already been playing for hours. However, that looks like it's about to change. Overwatch will be among the first titles that will allow for users to take home the game early so that it will be ready to play on launch day. Best Buy, GameStop and Amazon will all be selling Overwatch on May 23, one day ahead of its official release date.
This promotion will put gamers who prefer to buy disc copies of the title on the same footing as those who buy digitally. Normally, players who bought the game via PSN, the Xbox Store or through Blizzard's Battle.net would be the only ones able to download and install the game ahead, and thus be able to play the game the moment the servers go online. Physical disc buyers have always had to go home, install the game and download updates before being able to play, a process that can take some serious time, depending on how much data needs to be downloaded.
Since Overwatch is an online-only game, nobody will be able to play until the servers officially go live sometime during May 24. Allowing players to preload the title, regardless of whether they bought it digitally or physically, is great for those who can hardly stand to wait any longer. Maybe other big-name online-only titles will start to adopt this kind of practice in the future. After all, for online-only games, there is no real downside. Players can't play the game until the servers go live anyway, and often, retailers have the games several days in advance of the retail date. Seems like a win-win for everybody.
Speaking of servers, it's unclear when exactly Blizzard will be turning on those for Overwatch. The Xbox store states the game's servers will go live at 12:01 a.m. EDT, but Blizzard has yet to confirm.
Curious about Overwatch? Be sure to check out our impressions of the console versions of the game, and read about how it's both similar (and in many ways different) from Gearbox's Battleborn.
