Blizzard’s Diablo IV is Coming to Steam on October 17

After Blizzard released Overwatch 2 on Steam back in August, the publisher will soon follow up with Diablo IV, which will be available on Valve’s platform starting October 17. Until now, the PC version of Diablo IV was exclusively available from Blizzard’s Battle.net service, but the company announced back in July that it was ready to bring more of its games to Steam.

“The timing of Diablo IV’s launch on Steam couldn’t be better! It coincides with the release of Season of Blood, our second Season, which introduces a new Questline for you to uncover, Vampiric Powers to wield with terrifying lethality, 5 additional endgame bosses, and more,” Blizzard said in the announcement yesterday. The Steam version of Diablo IV will still require a Battle.net account, and it will cross-platform play with PC and console players.

Diablo IV, which was released on June 6 on PC and current-gen consoles, had one of the biggest launches of the year, crossing over 12 million players in August. Yet, the game has somewhat struggled to keep players engaged with its lackluster endgame content and a first season that many players saw as premature. The game also received criticism for its overpriced cosmetics and unexpected class balance changes, though this is something Blizzard promised to be more careful about going forward.

Until recently, it would have been unimaginable to see Activision Blizzard make a blockbuster game like Diablo IV available on Steam just four months after its launch. However, Steam is the biggest digital storefront for PC games, and the publisher will likely sell a lot more copies of Diablo IV in the coming weeks. Even though Valve will take a cut on all sales, this is apparently still worth it for the Diablo IV publisher.

While Overwatch 2 was review-bombed on Steam, it will be interesting to see what will happen with Diablo IV later this month. And coincidentally or not, the game’s October 17 release date on Steam is just one day ahead of the UK’s CMA deadline for approving or blocking Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

With the UK regulator recently giving provisional approval to Microsoft’s restructured deal, this excruciatingly long acquisition saga should reach its conclusion very soon. And if Microsoft manages to complete the acquisition, Diablo IV and other Activision Blizzard games will eventually become available on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.