Diablo 4 is coming to Steam on October 17

The Blizzard team announced that Diablo 4 is coming to Steam on October 17 (coinciding with the Season of Blood patch/release) and is already available to wishlist in the Steam store. This news came out during today’s Diablo 4 developer livestream and is huge for platform diversity, but may not be a huge change in general for the title.

So what does it mean that Diablo 4 is coming to Steam? Let’s discuss!

First, this opens up the title to an entirely new community. You can play the title with your Steam friends. However, the title still requires an internet connection (no offline mode, friends) and a Battle.net account to play, which means it still supports cross-platform, cross-progression gameplay. This is a familiar experience if you have any titles that launch their developer-specific login, like Epic Games. That said… if playing still requires a Battle.Bet account, how different is it from purchasing through the Battle.net client? And if you want to play it on Steam, you need to repurchase the title on Steam.

Next, your supported platform diversity just became a lot wider. The recent introduction of the Steam Deck added a handheld competitor for the Nintendo Switch, with so many more games available. While you could play Diablo 4 (and other Blizzard games!) on Steam Deck through a workaround, this means easy native integration and controller support.

But let’s not forget, adding D4 to the Steam platform introduces Steam Link. Want to play Diablo 4 from your iPad? No problem. Android phone? Go for it. These are all supported scenarios! The world is your oyster — so long as you have the connection set up between your gaming computer and device.

Truthfully, I was really excited when they first stated this on the stream but reined in a bit at the idea of having to repurchase the game. This is still a big move as the next title to join Steam following Overwatch 2, but Blizzard titles are enmeshed with Battle.net — you’re not escaping it with a Steam purchase. If this opens up possibilities for you, get yourself to Steam now and wishlist the title for its October 17 release. Hope to see you in Sanctuary!