Activision-Blizzard Bringing Over Battle.net Games to Steam - Starting With Overwatch 2

This one is definitely a bit of a surprise, but you won't hear us complain! Today, a Steam store page for Overwatch 2 showed up in my Twitter feed and I was taken back by surprise. The game is a Battle.net launcher exclusive, so seeing it make its way over is exciting. But, while this is awesome (and it comes out on August 10th), the announcement paired with it makes it a bit more exciting.

In the announcement, Activision-Blizzard notes that while their DRM has evolvedm so has the gaming community on PC. They want to try something new, which in this case is bringing games over to Steam. Though they don't mention just Overwatch 2, they mention they are "bringing a selection of our games to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2". This means we could see other exclusive games pop up on Steam in time like Starcraft 2, Hearthstone, or even Diablo 4. There's no information on it just yet, but it is an exciting prospect nonetheless.

Of course, any game coming to Steam usually means some better support for the Steam Deck. With Valve working side-by-side to bring Overwatch 2 to Steam, it isn't outside the realm of possibility to assume it could run better on the device. We also will have access to the shared shader cache, which could help out too! The game already runs quite well, so seeing some improvements could hopefully push it to a solid 60 FPS with higher quality visuals.

With Overwatch 2 in mind, the game will be available on Steam alongside a new content drop: Invasion, which will bring new multiplayer story missions, a new game mode where you will fight over a series of rotating control points, and new Hero Mastery Missions. And don't worry, if you already own the game and have been playing already, you won't lose any progress! You will need to still go login through Battle.net, which is an extra step but I am glad I won't be able to lose my progress as I did buy into the game early! It doesn't look like you will need to install Battle.net as a third party DRM either, which is wonderful.

Overwatch 2 can be wishlisted now on Steam and will release for free to everyone on August 10th.

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