What you need to know
- Overwatch 2 is coming to Steam on Aug. 10, 2023.
- Other Blizzard Entertainment games are also headed to the platform.
- This comes around the original time that Microsoft intended to have fully acquired Activision Blizzard.
Blizzard Entertainment is set to bring some games to Steam, starting with their free-to-play hero shooter.
That’s via a blog post shared on Wednesday, where Blizzard Entertainment explained that Overwatch 2 and other Blizzard games are headed to Valve’s uber-popular PC gaming storefront. While we don’t have a full list of games, we know Overwatch 2 will be launching on Steam on Aug. 10, 2023.
“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. “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 on August 10th. 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. “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.”
Players on Steam will still have to have a Battle.net account to play Overwatch 2, as the service handles the game’s cross-platform functionality and more. While Overwatch 2 has garnered tens of millions of players since it first launched, the cancellation of the originally-intended story mode content has been met with criticism.
Windows Central’s take
This really isn’t surprising. After all, today is the day after the original merger deadline for Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard — both parties agreed to extend the deadline into October to finish up any regulatory concerns — and Blizzard staff were likely told to start the transition to supporting Steam with Overwatch 2.
It’s similar to what we saw happen with the Bethesda Launcher after Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media, though Battle.net is far more complicated, handling back-end services for Activision Blizzard games.
