Epic has stepped up its battle with Valve for PC video game sales by cutting a deal with Ubisoft to pull The Division 2 from Steam and instead bring it to its own store.

It means the high-profile, triple-A release will not be available to buy on Steam, unlike its predecessor and previous Ubisoft PC titles.

The Division 2, due out 15th March, will also be sold on Ubisoft's own Uplay platform, as you'd expect.

It sounds like other future Ubisoft games will be sold on the Epic Games store, too, although it seems this deal comes too late to affect the sale of Far Cry New Dawn, which remains available to pre-purchase on Valve's platform.

Epic recently launched the Epic Games store offering a bigger cut of sales to developers than Valve currently offers through Steam. It's also made a game free to download every fortnight since.

In December, Epic signed a deal with Skybound to bring Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Final Season on PC to the Epic Games store, but this deal with Ubisoft is a significant step-up. The Division 2 is expected to shift millions of copies, so Valve will miss out on some serious cash.

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Prior to today, 9th January, all pre-orders for The Division 2 were offered directly through the Ubisoft Store. After today, PC players can pre-order The Division 2 on both the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games store (pre-ordering guarantees access to the upcoming beta). Then, on 15th March, PC players can buy the game on both the Ubisoft Store and the Epic Games store only.

Ubisoft's Chris Early said: "Epic continues to disrupt the videogame industry, and their third party digital distribution model is the latest example, and something Ubisoft wants to support."

At the time of publication, The Division 2's Steam store page is still live.