Thursday, July 20th 2023
Overwatch 2 Coming to Steam on August 10, Blizzard Hints About Adding More IPs in the Future
As Blizzard evolves as a studio, inside and out, one of the ideas pushing us forward is meeting players around the world where they are and making our games as easy as possible to access and play. We want to give everyone a chance to experience our universes with old friends while making new ones, no matter how they choose to play.
Battle.net is the home of all our PC players, and over the years, we've evolved our platform to support updated technologies, capabilities, and our communities' expectations. But as we've evolved, the industry has evolved too-gaming is no longer just for specific communities as it was when Battle.net launched over two decades ago, gaming is for everyone-and though we remain committed to continually investing in and supporting Battle.net, we want to break down the barriers to make it easier for players everywhere to find and enjoy our games. Which is why we're trying something new...
We're excited to announce that we are bringing a selection of our games to Steam, starting with Overwatch 2… which will be available on the platform on August 10!
"It's our goal at Blizzard to listen to players and try to exceed their expectations in everything we do," said Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment. "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."
"Gamers and developers are both going to benefit from Overwatch 2 coming to Steam," said Gabe Newell, Valve's president. "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."
As a free-to-play, team-based game, we believe Overwatch 2 is the perfect title for Blizzard's debut on the platform. Overwatch 2: Invasion is launching with more new types of gameplay experiences than at any point in the game's storied 7-year history, including the first-ever set of PvE Story Missions, a new core PvP game mode with two new maps, and of course, a new hero. It's a great opportunity for new players to enjoy their first experience of the Overwatch universe.
Overwatch 2's presence on Steam is in addition to Battle.net, so the incredible community already accessing the game through Battle.net can play as they have with no changes required. Players on Steam will still need to connect Overwatch 2 to a Battle.net account, as we require for all platforms, which enables cross-platform play and more. Players using Steam will have access to features of the platform while playing Overwatch 2, such as Steam achievements, their Steam friends list, and the ability to invite them to play in-game. We're excited to see the response from the Overwatch community-both veteran players and new ones who come on board through Steam-and we're looking forward to hearing their feedback.
As far as what's next for Blizzard on Steam, we'll be sharing more about potential other games coming to the platform when the time is right.
The Overwatch 2 Steam page is live now, and is available to wishlist! We invite the Overwatch community to give their new teammates playing from Steam a warm welcome on August 10! To stay up to date with everything Blizzard, be sure to follow us on Twitter.
Source:
Blizzard News
Battle.net is the home of all our PC players, and over the years, we've evolved our platform to support updated technologies, capabilities, and our communities' expectations. But as we've evolved, the industry has evolved too-gaming is no longer just for specific communities as it was when Battle.net launched over two decades ago, gaming is for everyone-and though we remain committed to continually investing in and supporting Battle.net, we want to break down the barriers to make it easier for players everywhere to find and enjoy our games. Which is why we're trying something new...
"It's our goal at Blizzard to listen to players and try to exceed their expectations in everything we do," said Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment. "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."
"Gamers and developers are both going to benefit from Overwatch 2 coming to Steam," said Gabe Newell, Valve's president. "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."
As a free-to-play, team-based game, we believe Overwatch 2 is the perfect title for Blizzard's debut on the platform. Overwatch 2: Invasion is launching with more new types of gameplay experiences than at any point in the game's storied 7-year history, including the first-ever set of PvE Story Missions, a new core PvP game mode with two new maps, and of course, a new hero. It's a great opportunity for new players to enjoy their first experience of the Overwatch universe.
Overwatch 2's presence on Steam is in addition to Battle.net, so the incredible community already accessing the game through Battle.net can play as they have with no changes required. Players on Steam will still need to connect Overwatch 2 to a Battle.net account, as we require for all platforms, which enables cross-platform play and more. Players using Steam will have access to features of the platform while playing Overwatch 2, such as Steam achievements, their Steam friends list, and the ability to invite them to play in-game. We're excited to see the response from the Overwatch community-both veteran players and new ones who come on board through Steam-and we're looking forward to hearing their feedback.
As far as what's next for Blizzard on Steam, we'll be sharing more about potential other games coming to the platform when the time is right.
The Overwatch 2 Steam page is live now, and is available to wishlist! We invite the Overwatch community to give their new teammates playing from Steam a warm welcome on August 10! To stay up to date with everything Blizzard, be sure to follow us on Twitter.
21 Comments on Overwatch 2 Coming to Steam on August 10, Blizzard Hints About Adding More IPs in the Future
(In case you don't know why I replaced "of" in "Ubisoft", it's because I actually used "hi", because swearing technically isn't allowed on these forums. Figure it out.)
You most likely need an account, but no app required.
For sure Steam has other benefits than being a popular digital game storefront. It has additional technologies (like Steam Input API support) that make it a better launcher and a strong modding community (though not applicable for this particular title). It also has a way better CDN infrastructure and a more sane game archiving system than other launchers (*cough* Epic Game Launcher *cough*).Just throw in a diacritic. Comment filters do a piss poor job at handling those. Then you don't have to explain it: just write Ubishït. Not technically swearing since it's not a real word.
This isn't a specific workaround strategy for TPU. You can do it pretty much anywhere including all social media sites. Nothing new there.
Amusingly, AI might do a better job filtering those out versus human-created content filters.
Not that it really matters. We understand the point being communicated whether it's an unfiltered real word, self-censored stand-in, or a sneaky diacritic-enabled trick, whatever.
kotaku.com/overwatch-2-steam-blizzard-world-of-warcraft-battle-net-1850652917
I hope this game crashes and burns on Steam, just like it's slowly been crashing in Blizzard's own marketfront.
I loved OW1, had a few hundred hours in it. It was one of my favourite games ever to play online with friends.
I believe they are doing this is to push product to the other buy to reduce bandwidth and of course COST. They won't have to upkeep their legacy systems which they do have.
People forget that these @$$hats tried to pull a fast on in 2016 with their netcode speeds and all hell ensued. They were using 20hz Netcode speeds until they were caught. Great for Warcrack... Not so great for an E-sport.
Note: I was lucky enough to be a Beta Tester when it first launched. I loved that game and as a casual gamer I spent money on it, which I do not regret spending, as over the years the old man made some friends with some young punks.
Note II: I knew OV1 was in serious trouble when Chris Metznen suddenly left two weeks after launch and "papa" Jeff took over...
And we all know what happened afterwards. Some of the laziest programming that I have ever seen coming from a AAA that had a good thing going.
And then the game just became a parody.
So yea, I know a weeeeee bit about that game and of course the industry as well.