Blizzard is getting rid of the Battle.net name

The Battle.net name is no more. Today Blizzard announced that it’s moving away from using the Battle.net moniker when referring to its online services. “Battle.net technology will continue to serve as the central nervous system for Blizzard games — nothing is changing in that regard,” the company wrote in a forum post. “We’ll just be referring to it as Blizzard tech instead.”

Battle.net originally debuted way back in 1996 alongside the original Diablo, and since then has been used to power iconic games like Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and more recent titles like Hearthstone and Overwatch. According to the company, as online multiplayer has become an expected part of its games — and as Blizzard expanded to new platforms like Facebook Live — the name was no longer needed.

“When we created Battle.net, the idea of including a tailored online-gaming service together with your game was more of a novel concept, so we put a lot of focus on explaining what the service was and how it worked, including giving it a distinct name,” the company explained. “Over time, though, we’ve seen that there’s been occasional confusion and inefficiencies related to having two separate identities under which everything falls — Blizzard and Battle.net.”

Moving forward, Blizzard’s games will operate as they always have, but the iconic name that players have grown accustomed to will no longer be there.