Blizzard has officially announced an Overwatch 2 Steam version, allowing Steam users to download and play the team-based shooter through the game distribution platform. Blizzard has also teased that other titles will be published on Steam in the future.
Both presidents of Blizzard Entertainment and Steam commented on the move. Here’s Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra’s statement:
It’s our goal at Blizzard to listen to players and try to exceed their expectations in everything we do. 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.
Meanwhile, this is what Steam president Gabe Newell had to say:
It’s our goal at Blizzard to listen to players and try to exceed their expectations in everything we do. 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.
Being a free-to-play title, Overwatch 2 will reach a much larger audience outside of its Battle.net client. Speaking of which, players will need a Battle.net account in order to play Overwatch 2 via Steam, so it’s likely that the game will be running via the Battle.net client, too. Steam achievements, game invites, and other Steam-exclusive features will be present, however, so it may be worth playing via Steam if you care about those features. You can wishlist Overwatch 2, which now has its own page, here.
Blizzard will be sharing more news regarding its games coming to Steam “when the time is right.”