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Blizzard’s bringing its PC games to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2

Draugoth

Gold Member
tracer_overwatch_2.0.jpg


  • Players will still need a Battle.net account, however
  • Blizzard Entertainment games coming to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2 on August 10

Blizzard Entertainment is bringing its PC games to Steam, starting with the release of Overwatch 2 on Valve’s digital storefront on Aug. 10, Blizzard announced Wednesday.

The Windows PC version of Overwatch 2, like many of Blizzard’s PC games, is currently only available through Battle.net. But with Microsoft’s impending acquisition of Activision Blizzard and declining player engagement in the game, the maker of Diablo, Warcraft, and Overwatch appears to be changing its strategy.

Blizzard says it will bring “a selection” of its games to Steam, but did not specify which titles beyond Overwatch 2 will make the jump from Battle.net. (A few classic Blizzard games, including the original Diablo and the first two Warcraft games, are available through GOG.com.)

The acceptance of Steam as a platform for Blizzard’s games is part of the studio’s evolution, the company said in a blog post. “[O]ne of the ideas pushing us forward is meeting players around the world where they are, and making our games as easy as possible to access and play,” the company said. “We want to give everyone a chance to experience our universes with old friends while making new ones, no matter how they choose to play.”

In its announcement, Blizzard said it’s not moving away from Battle.net. But, it explained, “as we’ve evolved, the industry has evolved too — gaming is no longer just for specific communities as it was when Battle.net launched over two decades ago, gaming is for everyone–and though we remain committed to continually investing in and supporting Battle.net, we want to break down the barriers to make it easier for players everywhere to find and enjoy our games.”

“It’s our goal at Blizzard to listen to players and try to exceed their expectations in everything we do,” said Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Entertainment, in a statement. “While Battle.net remains a priority for us now and into the future, we’ve heard players want the choice of Steam for a selection of our games, starting with Overwatch 2 [...]. We’re happy to work with Valve to make that happen.”

“Gamers and developers are both going to benefit from Overwatch 2 coming to Steam,” said Gabe Newell, Valve’s president, in a statement. “Gamers will have another platform where they can play a beloved game that utilizes the capabilities of Steam, and developers will benefit from the effects of having the talented team at Blizzard helping us evolve our supported features and functionality for Overwatch 2.”
 
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nikos

Member
Interesting. If everything carries over, and it definitely should, I may just play it via Steam instead. It's pretty much the last game I still launch on battle.net, unless Diablo IV Season 1 ends up being good.
 

Shubh_C63

Member
I still like casual Overwatch play from time to time. I will honestly play a lot more if it was in my steam library.
Good move.
 

Spyxos

Member
Ow 1 was so awesome, almost everyone I knew played it. Ow2 doesn't seem to interest anyone. The player numbers must be very low if they are even releasing it on Steam now.
 

Holammer

Member
WarCraft 3 CLASSIC would be cool to have on Steam. And Diablo 1 as well as Diablo II Resurrected.
I want Diablo 1&2, but I want the pixely & sexist version of D2. Sell it to me MS.

Looking forward to the account transfer, fingers crossed. It poses an interesting challenge as some players (like a friend of mine) have maxed out 350€ wallets due to selling gold in WoW. Will be interesting if being available on Steam will breathe new life into older games like HotS.
 

Red5

Member
Nice, but out of all the launchers out there outside Steam I was never bothered by Battle.net, it predates Steam by a decade at least and always worked for me.
 
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I don't expect them to ever drop the account requirement, at least for existing titles. Those games were all built around Battle.net and rely on it for all sorts of shit, ripping it out and replacing it with something else would be an absolute nightmare.
 

T-Cake

Member
I don't expect them to ever drop the account requirement, at least for existing titles. Those games were all built around Battle.net and rely on it for all sorts of shit, ripping it out and replacing it with something else would be an absolute nightmare.

I don't mind having a battle.net account that you can log in to within the game but certainly get rid of the actual application requirement, such as happened with Bethesda.
 

Red5

Member
Maybe Microsoft will shut down the Battle.net launcher as they did with the Bethesda launcher. I think it was possible to transfer Bethesda game over to Steam when that happened, but Battle.net is also much more popular, so who knows.

They won't, all of their games which supports millions of accounts rely on the Battle.net network to function online, I don't anytime when moving completely to Steam would be feasible.
 

VN1X

Banned
I wish we could get all of the CoD games on Steam with normal fuckin' pricing.

The original(!) CoD is still 20eu on Steam. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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