Blizzard's Battle.net Gets A New Name (Again)

Last year, Blizzard announced that it was "transitioning away" from Battle.net as the name for the Overwatch developer's online network. Now, the developer has made a U-turn of sorts, saying the name is staying, but with something new.

Going forward, Blizzard will link "Blizzard" and "Battle.net" into the name, to be henceforth known as "Blizzard Battle.net." In a blog post, Blizzard said it expected the shift away from Battle.net to be "challenging."

"Battle.net is the central nervous system for Blizzard games and the connective tissue that has brought Blizzard players together since 1996," the developer said. "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."

Blizzard Battle.net will now be seen in the service's logo and anywhere it's printed. In addition to Blizzard's own games, it will soon host the PC version of Destiny 2.

When the shift was first announced in September 2016, Blizzard said there was "occasional confusion and inefficiencies" related to having a single name for something that represents multiple things, thus pushing it toward the change.