Feb 22, 2017 09:34 AM EST By Emily Schultz, UniversityHerald Reporter

Blizzard is well-known in the gaming community for supporting games. The company has a strong commitment when it comes to updating games, in "Diablo 2," for example, received a patch last June, that's about 16 years after the action RPG first introduced. However, even a committed developer like Blizzard has its own limits.

According to PC Magazine, Blizzard this week announced plans to end support for both Windows Vista and Windows XP sometime in the next few months.

Blizzard said that the changes to the games will be rolled out on a staggered schedule, but Blizzard has promised users to inform them when making changes for each game.

After this change rolls out, users will no longer be able to run titles such as "Starcraft 2," "Diablo 3," "Hearthstone," "Heroes of the Storm" and "World of Warcraft" on an unsupported operating system (Windows XP and Windows Vista) once supports comes to an end.

The Redmond-based software company has stopped supporting Windows Vista and Windows XP in 2009 and 2012 respectively, but Blizzard continue support since a decent portion of the Microsoft Windows user base was still using those Windows versions.

Blizzard Community Manager Ornyx wrote on Blizzard battle.net., encouraging users to take the upgrade from the older OS versions to the newer OS versions.

As mentioned earlier by Ars Technica, the decision to end of XP and Vista support is likely linked to the internet connection requirement for these titles, which is accessed via a launcher in the Windows operating systems. Games like the "Diablo 3" do have single-player modes, but these game require an online connection in order to function well.

Based in Irvine, California, Blizzard Entertainment is a leading game developer and publisher. Blizzard's notable projects include some of the industry's biggest video games series, including other Warcraft sequels, the Diablo series, the StarCraft series, and World of Warcraft.

In addition to those game series, Blizzard's other successful video games and its most recent projects include the first expansion for slash and hack game "Diablo 3" and very popular team-based first-person shooter Overwatch.

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