Blizzard has confirmed that both The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered and Cyberpunk 2077 will launch on Battle.net before the end of the year. This expansion of third-party titles onto Blizzard's proprietary launcher comes amid a broader trend, but the company maintains it has no ambition to compete with platforms like Steam or the Epic Games Store.
Battle.net, which originally launched in 1997, has historically served as a platform exclusively for Blizzard's own games. Its role expanded over time to include PC sales, and later incorporated titles from Activision-published series such as Call of Duty and Crash Bandicoot, as well as games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The inclusion of CD Projekt Red's titles marks a further step in opening the platform to external developers.
However, Andrew Guerrero of Blizzard clarified in an interview that the company's approach to expanding Battle.net is highly selective. "We're obviously not out there trying to do the Steam or Epic Game Store thing," Guerrero stated. "We really look at ourselves as, you know, we have our audience. We have a passionate core of people that play Blizzard games and games similar to Blizzard, and if something makes sense for them, we'll get after it."
Blizzard's strategy prioritizes curated, high-quality experiences that align with the interests of its existing player base. Guerrero emphasized that the company values its players' time and attention, and aims to showcase games that are likely to appeal to them. This contrasts with the more open, self-publishing model employed by larger storefronts, which can lead to challenges in game curation.
"If you look at Steam, they spend a lot of time making a platform that is explicitly for publishing games on the platform," Guerrero explained. "We didn't really build Battle.net for that, but we did spend some time getting it to a place where it's much more straightforward, and we can do it without it being completely bespoke."
Guerrero also indicated that Battle.net is unlikely to reach a point where it offers a simple, universal self-publishing option. The company's cautious curation approach suggests that while more third-party games may appear on Battle.net, they will likely be titles that Blizzard believes strongly resonate with its audience, such as the upcoming CD Projekt Red RPGs. The success of these initial third-party releases will likely inform Blizzard's future decisions regarding platform expansion.