Blizzard Brings Battle.net Back to Life, Now Called Blizzard Battle.net

Back in March we reported, with extremely heavy hearts, that Blizzard was retiring the "Battle.net" name and sticking simply with "Blizzard" for all of its branding. The Battle.net launcher became the Blizzard launcher, and we all became slightly hollow on the inside as a huge part of our gaming youth died. Today Blizzard is puling a Mercy and reviving Battle.net. It has seen a small change, however, and will henceforth be known as Blizzard Battle.net.

You guys can probably guess exactly what happened. After Blizzard killed off Battle.net, the greater Blizzard community continued to call the online service by its true name, despite Blizzards assurance that it was gone and never coming back. No one agreed with that decision, and now Blizzard has changed its mind. From the official update:

"When we announced that we'd be transitioning away from the Battle.net name for our online-gaming service, we suspected that the shift would be challenging. We understood that Battle.net stood for something special—it represents years of shared history and enjoyment, community and friendship, for all of us and our players.

"Battle.net is the central nervous system for Blizzard games and the connective tissue that has brought Blizzard players together since 1996. The technology was never going away, but after giving the branding change further consideration and also hearing your feedback, we're in agreement that the name should stay as well. Take it from the developer formerly known as Silicon & Synapse, and Chaos Studios, names are important too.

"Moving forward, to help offset some of the original concerns we listed back in September, we will be connecting 'Blizzard' to 'Battle.net' in our logo for the service and in general when we refer to it in print: Blizzard Battle.net."

We're going to be honest: Blizzard Battle.net doesn't exactly roll off of the tongue, but we'll take what we can get. No one is going to actually say that anyway. As far as we're concerned, Battle.net is back! Tell your friends, and boot up a game of classic Starcraft to celebrate. GL. HF. DD.