Some Steam users in the Middle East are currently experiencing a service interruption that left their cloud storage inaccessible as a result of the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran. While Valve has acknowledged the issue, the company has offered little clarity on when affected Steam users may regain access to their data and has warned that some of it may have been lost permanently.
The United States and Israel launched a joint bombing campaign against Iran on February 28, 2026. Over the next two months, the conflict escalated rapidly, with Iran launching missile and drone strikes on Gulf energy and civilian infrastructure. The Strait of Hormuz was also repeatedly closed and reopened during this period, disrupting one of the world’s most important oil transit routes. The conflict had already turned some gaming industry heads even before the partial Steam service outage, after the White House used Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 footage to promote its military campaign against Iran in a now-deleted tweet from early March 2026.
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Steam Support Acknowledges Middle East Service Outage
Within weeks of the conflict erupting, some users in the Middle East began experiencing problems with Steam Cloud, the service that allows for cloud saves on the Steam Deck and any other PC running Valve’s storefront. According to a screenshot of a Steam Support chat shared by Reddit user Pristine_Unit_2146 in late April 2026, Valve is now officially acknowledging the issue, at least when asked by affected customers directly. However, the company is not ready to commit to a concrete time frame for its resolution, saying that the timeline “remains unclear.”
Some Steam Users in the Middle East May Suffer Permanent Data Loss
The support message suggests the recent attacks did not damage Valve’s own infrastructure. Rather, it attributes the ongoing Steam Cloud issues to “damage to some third-party datacenters [sic] and cloud providers” that Valve uses to provide cloud storage services in the region. The group says it maintains redundant storage across those third-party sites, meaning most affected users likely have at least one backup that can be restored once regional service is back online. Even so, Valve has warned that “a small number of users” may suffer permanent data loss if enough data centers were damaged.
Steam is not the only gaming platform affected by the recent attacks on Gulf data centers. User reports on social media also point to service interruptions affecting several popular multiplayer games in the Middle East, including Battlefield 6. No affected company has announced permanent data loss so far. As for Valve, its users in the region are reportedly still able to download and play games. Because the issue appears to be regional, it cannot be reliably tracked in real-time as a typical global Steam service outage monitored through public services such as Down Detector.
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The U.S. and Iran remain locked in a standoff over the Strait of Hormuz blockade, with no clear path to de-escalation as of late April 2026. The Iran war was recently cited as one of the factors behind GDC 2026’s sharp attendance decline, while its impact has extended well beyond the gaming industry, disrupting global energy prices and other markets.
