Without giving up on Battle.net, Blizzard will be releasing Overwatch 2 on the most famous of PC platforms.
Few people know it, but the Battle.net platform is old, very old indeed, since it was launched on December 31, 1996 to support the multiplayer mode of the studio's games and, in particular, to continue the success of the online network mode of some of its hits such as WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness. In 1996, Steam was probably still only a vague project in the mind of Gabe Newell, who had just left Microsoft to found his own video game development studio, Valve. We all know the rest, more or less. Valve first achieved incredible success with Half-Life, Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike, before looking for a new distribution channel and turning to the publishing and sale of PC titles in dematerialized form. Steam was born. The success story would continue, to the point of making the platform the number one in PC gaming, and Gabe Newell a multi-billionaire.
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Blizzard's success story isn't quite as impressive, but the Californian studio is still a safe bet when it comes to PC gaming. Rather than converting to Steam or any other platform, Blizzard has insisted on developing Battle.net's functionalities to the point of making it its sole service. It serves as a community portal, an online gaming interface and a store selling both accessories and PC versions of its games... as well as Activision titles since the merger of the two companies. But today, Blizzard surprised everyone by announcing the imminent arrival of its games on Steam. Well, "its games" is a bit strong, as the press release states that the studio is " excited to announce that we will be porting a selection of our games to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2... which will be available on the platform starting August 10 ".
So, rather than THE Blizzard games coming to Steam, it would be more accurate to say Overwatch 2 is coming to Steam. That said, it's a first step. A step that Blizzard explains by its desire " to meet gamers around the world where they are, and to make [its] games as easy to access as possible ". Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, is delighted to see a game like Overwatch 2 land on Steam, noting that " players and developers will all benefit from Overwatch 2's arrival on Steam. Gamers will have another platform where they can play their beloved game that utilizes Steam's capabilities, and developers will benefit from having Blizzard's talented team to help us evolve our features and those supported for Overwatch 2." Finally, Mike Ybarra, CEO of Blizzard states that " while Battle.net remains the priority, we've heard that gamers want to choose Steam for a selection of our games. We look forward to working with Valve to make this happen. "
© Clubic
It's important to point out thatOverwatch 2 can currently only be added to the Steam wish list, with its actual availability set for August 10. It's also worth noting that, even when launched from Steam, Overwatch 2 will still need the Battle.net launcher, which in particular " enables cross-platform play". Blizzard justifies the integration with Steam by the interest in taking advantage of the service's benefits, "achievements, friends lists and the ability to invite friends to your own games ". Unfortunately, we won't know any more for the moment. No doubt we'll have to wait for the Steam community's reception of Overwatch 2 to discover Blizzard's intentions, as the company concludes its press release by stating that new information about other games ported to Steam will be published " when the time is right". Now we're getting somewhere.
