Blizzard decides to retire Battle.net brand in favor of a more Blizzard-centric name
Blizzard’s Battle.net service, its longtime online gaming platform, has served gamers since the release of Diablo in 1996 and has been featured in nearly every Blizzard game since. In an effort to tie its properties closer to its overall brand, Blizzard has announced it will be retiring the Battle.net name in favor of one that associates the platform more closely to the company’s brand.
Blizzard claims this is part of a larger strategy to eliminate unnecessary divides in its overall image and cited two new services, Bizzard Voice and Blizzard Streaming, as examples of how the company is centralizing its services under one name. Blizzard has assured its fans that the name change will not affect the service itself and none of the features that Battle.net provides should be affected.
Battle.net serves as a single client that hosts all of Blizzard’s games and servers in one place and has also enabled Blizzard to keep some of its older games relevant, such as allowing them to release a major update to Warcraft 3, which was released in 2003, earlier this year.
Blizzard has not yet revealed a new name but has promised updates in the weeks to come.
Poland honors CD Projekt Red and The Witcher franchise with Geralt of Rivia stamp
Earlier this week, Poczta Polska, the state administered postal service of Poland, released a limited edition stamp depicting the iconic protagonist of The Witcher RPG franchise, Geralt of Rivia. Within days the stamp had already sold out and has since been removed from the Poczta Polska website.
Whether you are a hardcore stamp collector or just a fan of the Witcher series, you can still find the stamps through services like eBay, provided you’re willing to pay the trans-continental shipping cost. Regardless, the stamp will be available for a limited time and will most likely see several reprints before it is out of circulation.
The latest game in the franchise, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, was critically acclaimed and won several awards, including Game of the Year from IGN and Game Informer, as well as best RPG of the year from The Game Awards.
Star Wars: Battlefront releases iconic Death Star Battle this week as DLC
The Death Star is one of the most iconic elements of the Star Wars franchise, and the battles that involve it prove to be some of the most exciting and important in the original trilogy. As of Tuesday, Sept. 22, you can experience some of those epic fictional battles yourself through the new Star Wars: Battlefront downloadable content, “Death Star.”
This new “Death Star” DLC features five new maps in or around the infamous battle station, including several space battles, which were absent from the Battlefront reboot that fans have been clamoring for. The DLC also features two new heroes, the bounty hunter Bossk and Chewbacca himself, as well as a slew of new vehicles, weapons and Star Cards.
Now you can infiltrate the Death Star as Han Solo and Chewy or blow it up in a climatic trench run as Luke Skywalker. Whether you’re dogfighting off the bow of a star destroyer or running the infamous Death Star trench, you’ll likely experience one of the most authentic and visually impressive depictions of the Star Wars universe through the DLC for this high-budget EA title.
The DLC is now available as an addition to the base game as part of the $49.99 Star Wars: Battlefront Season Pass along with the game’s other four DLC packs. It will later be available separately for $14.99.