Highlights
- Blizzard adds classic games to Battle.net, including Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft 2, and Diablo.
- Battle.net allows players to buy games, offers social features, and cross-game messaging.
- The addition of these early Blizzard titles gives fans a chance to revisit the origins of the Warcraft and Diablo franchises.
Blizzard is adding three of its classic games to the Battle.net service. The release brings some classic 90s titles to the platform, including some of Blizzard’s first entries in the real time strategy genre.
Battle.net is Blizzard’s online game store and platform that lets players buy most of the studio’s titles. The platform launched in December 1996, just prior to the release of the original Diablo in January 1997. As well as allowing purchases and being used to launch most Blizzard games, Battle.net offers some social networking features, so players can see the games friends are playing and provides cross-game messaging and voice chat features. In 2017, Blizzard announced that it intended to rebrand Battle.net as Blizzard Tech, but later reversed the decision to avoid causing confusion and to continue benefiting from the existing brand following. There’s also a mobile version of Battle.net that offers mobile games and access to some social networking features.
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Original Warcraft and Diablo Titles Added To Battle.net
Although most of Blizzard’s best games are available through the service, there have been notable absences. Overwatch, Destiny 2, and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos are not available, while some of the studio’s first games have also been missing, until now. Blizzard announced via Twitter that Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, and Diablo are all now available on Battle.net. Warcraft II includes the Beyond the Dark Portal expansion, while Diablo buyers also receive the Hellfire expansion.
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is the original title that, in 1994, launched the massive franchise that now consists of six base games and dozens of expansions and has spawned the release of the popular strategy card game Hearthstone, which is also set in the Warcraft universe. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was the follow-up to the original real-time strategy, while the 1997 classic Diablo is a dungeon-crawler that places more of an emphasis on action role playing.
The three titles are some of Blizzard’s earliest games and adding them to the Battle.net store gives gamers a chance to see where the two series started or to relive early playing days. Battle.net includes most of Blizzard’s best games including the Starcraft and Hearthstone series and Overwatch. The Call of Duty series can also be found on Blizzard’s platform, but Destiny fans will have to head to Steam to get their fill of the first-person shooter. It is also potentially good news for fans worried that Blizzard is moving away from the Battle.net platform.
