How to Play Blizzard Games on the Steam Link

Overview

Learn how to make Steam and Blizzard games get along.

Intro

It might seem easy to setup Blizzard games in Steam by adding them as non-Steam games, but often the Blizzard App opens up and Steam doesn’t recognize it or the Steam overlay crashes when the game launches. So after doing some research, here’s how you can get your Blizzard games to work friendly with Steam Big Picture Overlay, Steam In-Home Streaming, and the Steam Link. You’ll need to do this guide on your host computer. That’s the computer you select to stream from on your Steam Link.

Please note these instructions assumes Steam running on a Windows OS.
I cannot test if this guide can work on Mac, Linux, or Steam OS.

Configure Blizzard App

There’s a couple settings that need to be changed so the Blizzard App behaves as how Steam expects launchers to work.

1. Open the Blizzard App.
2. Click the Blizzard icon at the top-left of the window.
3. Click Settings.
4. In the General tab, uncheck Launch Blizzard App when you start your computer.
5. Change the “When I launch a game” setting to Exit Blizzard App completely.
6. Uncheck Show a brief countdown instead of closing immediately.
7. Click Done.
8. Quit the Blizzard App.

Add Blizzard App to Steam

This isn’t as straight-forward as it seems, so please read the directions carefully.

1. From the main Steam window, click Games at the top-left of the window.
2. Click Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library…
3. Click the Browse… button at the bottom of the window.
4. Navigate to where your Blizzard App is installed.
   • On 32-bit OSes, the default location is C:Program FilesBlizzard App
   • On 64-bit OSes, the default location is C:Program Files (x86)Blizzard App
5. Click the Battle.net application. Do NOT select Battle.net Launcher.
6. Click OK.
7. Click Add Selected Programs.

Edit Blizzard App Properties in Steam

1. Copy the text corresponding to your game from the Copy Text column of the table below.
2. Find Battle.net in your Steam library.
3. Right-click Battle.net.
4. Click Properties.
5. Change title from Battle.net to your game’s title.
6. In the Target field, insert a space after the last quotation mark and paste the text from Step 1.
   • Example: “C:Program Files (x86)Blizzard App/Battle.net.exe” battlenet://S2
7. Click Close.

Play the Game Through Steam

If you followed these instructions correctly, you now can play Blizzard games with the Steam overlay working properly. Test on your computer first. Launch the game from the Steam library and the Blizzard App should launch. Click the Play button. Your game should get a pop-up indicating the Steam overlay works. If it does not, restart these directions and read carefully.

Steam can handle an update to your game, though you might get latency and stuttering during the download. If there’s an update to the Blizzard App, I recommend exiting the app and updating it manually via your host computer.

Source for guide information:

[Guide] How to use Steam Overlay with the Blizzard Launcher and Overwatch from Overwatch

Changelog

2020-10-19 – Added Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Thanks to gamingdominari.
2020-01-29 – Added Warcraft III: Reforged. Thanks to Riddy.
2019-10-28 – Added Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Thanks to Bandow. Removed Destiny 2.
2018-10-15 – Added Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. Thanks to 𝒞𝒶𝓇𝓅𝑒.
2017-10-26 – Added Destiny 2 with a warning.
2017-08-15 – Added StarCraft Remastered but can’t verify if it works for full game (I don’t own it).
2017-06-30 – Clarified game launch behavior. Changed game/app update recommendations.
2017-04-05 – Renamed Battle.net Desktop App to Blizzard App.
2016-07-24 – Initial version.