Diablo IV fever is about to run wild. The first early access beta for those who pre-ordered the game will run from March 17 to 19. As of the public open beta, it is scheduled to run from March 24 to 26. The full game however, is scheduled to release on June 6, 2023.
Now, with Diablo 4 beta quite close, many fans have been wondering if they will be able to run it on their Steam Deck or the game will release on Steam? We have the answer to both the queries for you.
Will Diablo IV Release on Steam?
As things stand, there is no official confirmation of Diablo IV being available on Steam. As you might already know, Activision Blizzard has its own game launcher, Battle.net and all of its games are available through this game launcher. However, recently, some of the games from Activision Blizzard has been made available to Steam as well. Despite the availability of old games, the publishing company hasn’t confirmed any plans to bring the game to Valve’s digital distribution platform, Steam.
So at launch atleast, the game on PC only be accessible via Battle.net. However, since Microsoft is in pursuit of acquiring Activision Blizzard, if the acquisition is completed in near future, Diablo IV could eventually be release on Steam. If the Microsoft-Activision deal goes through, we might even see the game eventually coming to Xbox Game Pass as well. All of this though are future possibilities. For now, if you are looking to play Diablo IV on PC, it will be through Battle.net only.
How Will Diablo IV Run on Steam Deck?
Since the game isn’t releasing on Steam, Diablo IV won’t be officially supported on Steam. Activision Blizzard too hasn’t anything related to Diablo IV Steam Deck support. While there is no official support, this doesn’t mean that the game won’t be playable on Steam Deck. In fact, some early reports have claimed that the Diablo 4 works fine on Steam Deck.
However, if you are using the default Steam Deck OS on your device which is Linux based, you will have to follow some steps to make it work. If you have a Windows OS installed, things will be relatively easier for you.
There are a lot of games out there currently which are not officially supported however, they run great on the device as Steam Deck is quite close to a PC based on how it functions. So chances of Diablo IV running on Steam Deck decently are quite high. We will know about the performance soon enough during the beta phases of the game.
There is a lot of hype associated with Diablo 4’s beta and KFC wanted to capitalize on that. The fast food chain is running a special promotion for Diablo 4. If you order a “double down” KFC deal, you will get a code for Diablo IV early access beta which will run from March 17 to 19. So if you don’t want to pre-order the game and still want to check out the game early, KFC’s double down deal is the way to go.
As mentioned before, Diablo IV will release for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 on June 6, 2023. As for a Nintendo Switch release, currently, no official plans have been shared by Activision Blizzard for bringing Diablo 4 to Nintendo Switch. However, that could change in future as Diablo 3 is also available on Nintendo Switch. Probably the rumored new Nintendo Switch hardware will be able to handle Diablo 4 well.
