Miracles still happen. Blizzard is expanding its games from Battle.net to Steam. We have all the information for you.
Blizzard games have been played on Battle.net. This has been an undeniable truth for almost 20 years. But that is about to change. Blizzard has announced that its games will soon be available on Steam as well. The first will be the free-to-play shooter Overwatch 2, which will be available on Steam starting August 10, 2023.
Do you need a Battle.net account? Yes, it is necessary to link a Battle.net account with the Steam account to access Overwatch 2.
What else does Blizzard say? In a blog post from Blizzard, Mike Ybarra, the head of Blizzard Entertainment, said: “Although Battle.net will continue to be a priority for us now and in the future, we have heard from players that they want Steam for some of our games, starting with Overwatch 2 on August 10. We are glad to work with Valve to make this possible.”
What does this bring? The advantage is that you no longer need a separate launcher, like the Battle.net launcher, if you want to play Overwatch 2 and are already using Steam. Additionally, you can access Steam features while playing Overwatch 2 – such as the friends list, from which you can invite other players, or Steam achievements.
Currently, everyone plays together, so there is no separation between “Battle.net launcher” players and those joining via Steam.
Will there be more games? That seems to be the plan. Although no concrete details have been released yet, Overwatch 2 is likely just the first step. It would be easy to imagine that other Blizzard titles – such as Diablo IV, Hearthstone or World of Warcraft – will also be playable on Steam in the future. As soon as we have more info on this, we will, of course, report on it.
What do you think about it? A good thing to attract more players? Or “meaningless” if you still need a Battle.net account?
