Blizzard sees the light, brings back the Battle.net name

Earlier this year, Blizzard renamed its venerable Battle.net client to the Blizzard App, or maybe the Blizzard Launcher—I was never entirely clear on which it was supposed to be—in order to reflect its growth into a more well-rounded, Steam-like piece of software. The trouble is that Battle.net is a really good name with a lot of history behind it, and so the change never really took. Even Blizzard opted to call it Battle.net when Destiny 2 was revealed. Given all that, it's not really surprising that Blizzard has thrown in the towel on the whole thing. 

"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," Blizzard wrote in the re-renaming announcement

"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." 

The new/old name will be a slightly modified take on the original, going from Battle.net to Blizzard Battle.net, reflected in the new logo "and in general when we refer to it in print." Naturally, the rest of us will just keep calling it Battle.net. And all's well that ends well.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.