Some Steam users in the Middle East are currently experiencing a service outage that has made their cloud storage unavailable due to the ongoing conflict between the United States and Iran. While Valve has acknowledged the issue, the company has provided little clarity on when affected Steam users can regain access to their data, warning that some of it may have been permanently lost.
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 as Iran launched missile and drone attacks on Persian 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 heads in the gaming industry even before the partial shutdown of Steam after the White House used it Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 footage promoting her military campaign against Iran in a now-deleted tweet from early March 2026.
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Steam support confirms service outage in Middle East
In the weeks since the conflict broke out, some users in the Middle East have started experiencing issues with Steam Cloud, a service that allows cloud saves on Steam Deck and any other computer running Valve's storefront. According to a Steam Support chat screenshot shared by Reddit user Pristine_Unit_2146 in late April 2026, Valve is now officially acknowledging the issue, at least when asked by directly affected customers. However, the company is not ready to commit to a specific time frame for its solution, saying the timeline “remains unclear.”
Some Steam users in the Middle East may experience permanent data loss
The support report suggests that the recent attacks did not damage Valve's own infrastructure. Rather, he attributes the ongoing problems with Steam's cloud to “corruption of some third-party data centers [sic] and cloud providers” that Valve uses to provide cloud storage services in the region. The group says it maintains redundant storage at these third-party sites, meaning most affected users likely have at least one backup that can be restored once the regional service is back online. Still, Valve warned that a “small number of users” could suffer permanent data loss if enough data centers were damaged.
Steam isn't the only gaming platform affected by the recent Gulf data center attacks. Reports from users on social media also point to service disruptions affecting several popular multiplayer games in the Middle East, including Battlefield 6. No affected company has yet reported permanent data loss. As for Valve, its users in the region are reportedly still able to download and play the games. Because the issue appears to be regional, it cannot be reliably tracked in real-time like a typical global Steam outage monitored through public services such as Down Detector.
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The US and Iran remain locked in a stalemate over the Strait of Hormuz blockade, with no clear path to de-escalation by the end of April 2026. The Iran war was recently cited as one of the factors behind the sharp drop in attendance at GDC 2026, while its impact has extended far beyond the gaming industry to disrupt global energy prices and other markets.
