Originally, the launch for Overwatch 2 was as you would expect: record players with the series now free-to-play. The sequel in just over its first week did embrace more than 25 million users. That milestone was also met with a total of 35 million players by the first month. However, there were hurdles that the team faced as well at the time.
In that, the game was plagued by DDOS attacks as a mass number of users logged in then. But, there has been more drama recently for the game this year. In a previous Dev Chat, Blizzard Entertainment is restructuring its planned story mode for Overwatch 2. The team said it is refocusing its plan for the PvE experience to focus on player retention for the new business model that came to the series.
On Wednesday, Blizzard Entertainment has announced that Overwatch 2 will now be the catalyst for its titles coming to Steam. For years, games from the firm was only available via Battle.net and that appears to be an option now as more games are surely to follow Overwatch 2 in the coming weeks.
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.
Mike Ybarra, Blizzard Entertainment President
“Gamers and developers are both going to benefit from Overwatch 2 coming to Steam. Gamers will have another platform where they can play a beloved game that utilizes the capabilities of Steam, and developers will benefit from the effects of having the talented team at Blizzard helping us evolve our supported features and functionality for Overwatch 2,” valve president Gabe Newell adds.
Recently, more and more titles have started to migrate from in-house launchers to Steam. Previously, Ubisoft pursued this with games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Roller Champions, and Anno 1800. More close to Activision, Call of Duty has also done the same as Modern Warfare II pioneered the return of the series as well as other preceding entries. You can read the full report by heading here.
How surprised are you that Blizzard games are coming to Steam?
Source: Blizzard Entertainment
