Blizzard PC games are coming to Steam. It’s a move that many PC gamers are likely to be pleased with for one reason or another. These days, playing PC games often means that you have to have more than a few PC clients installed. Which fragments your game library into many different places. For Blizzard game fans, the need for battle.net to be installed is inching ever closer to disappearing.
This will all depend on which games Blizzard decides to bring over, of course. And worth noting is that this won’t happen all at once. According to Blizzard’s official post on the Blizzard forums, games will start coming to Steam in stages. And Blizzard doesn’t say all of its games are making the transition. Only select titles will be brought over.
Blizzard games coming to Steam will begin with Overwatch 2
Overwatch 2 will be the first game from Blizzard’s library making it over to Steam. And Blizzard says the game will be available starting on August 10. “We’ve heard players want the choice of Steam for a selection of our games,” says Blizzard President Mike Ybarra in the official Blizzard forums post.
Ybarra was also keen to point out that battle.net will still remain the priority for Blizzard “now and into the future.” So battle.net isn’t going anywhere, and if you prefer to use it for all your Blizzard title access, you can. For those that will be accessing the studio’s games via Steam, you will still need a battle.net account to play them. So that isn’t changing.
Playing on Steam though will have its advantages. If you play via Steam, you’ll have access to Steam Achievements, and Blizzard confirms these will be available with Overwatch 2 when it hits the platform next month. You’ll also be able to see your Steam Friends list as you would with any other game, and send in-game invites to play with you. It isn’t clear which titles will come to Steam after Overwatch 2. But it isn’t hard to imagine the likes of Diablo IV. Blizzard says it’ll share more on additional “potential” titles when the time is right.