Another major pillar of the Battle.net launcher on PC is arriving on Steam, with Diablo IV hopping over later this month. Blizzard announced the surprising news today in its latest Developer Update livestream, revealing an October 17 date for the Steam release. The store page is already up for filling wishlists too.
Diablo IV debuted on June 6, 2023, across consoles and PC, but on the latter platform, it has only been available for purchase and play from Blizzard"s first-party Battle.net service. The release was a major success for Blizzard, with record-breaking pre-order numbers and an impressive launch making it the company"s fastest selling game in its long history.
Like other platforms, the Steam version will come with cross-play with Battle.net as well as Xbox and PlayStation players. Features like Steam achievements and integration with Steam friends lists will be available in this version too.
"Diablo IV is a game about slaying nightmarish creatures and acquiring powerful gear, but also about forging memories with new and old friends," says Blizzard regarding the game"s arrival to a new service. "We want to break down barriers to make it easier for wanderers everywhere to defend Sanctuary."
Almost the entire mainline Diablo franchise has been exclusive to Blizzard"s platforms since their inception. One departure was the original Diablo"s launch on the DRM-free GOG store in 2019. The free-to-play Overwatch 2, another Blizzard game, recently jumped over to Steam as well, though it hasn"t been received very well so far.
October 17 is also when Diablo IV"s second season of content "Season of Blood" kicks off across all platforms. Blizzard has a huge amount of community requested changes as well as content planned for this update.
This includes the ability to skip the campaign after the prologue for new characters, much faster leveling, better dungeon designs to reduce backtracking, vampiric powers, faster mounts, farmable Unique and Uber items from five new endgame bosses, a new questline, and much more. Head here to get a rundown of all the upcoming changes.