It has been confirmed that the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 will not be available via Steam, but will instead be released through Battle.net. This has since been confirmed by Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan who was quoted as saying, “Those of us at Blizzard have been friends with Treyarch for many, many years. When it came to working on Overwatch, we consulted with Treyarch on a number of features. With all the features of Battle.net, I think it’s going to be pretty amazing what Black Ops 4 is going to have to offer.”
With it being available via Battle.net, it also means that gamers will be able to take advantage of Battle.net’s social features, such as chatting and also friends lists. They will also be able to chat with other players across Battle.net games, so you can have a conversation with a friend on Overwatch while playing Black Ops 4.
That being said, it’s not surprising that it has come to this. After all both Activision and Blizzard are under the same Activision Blizzard banner, so for them to work together almost seems to be expected. Black Ops 4 will also be the first Call of Duty game to be available via Battle.net and is expected to remain there exclusively.