Battle.net 2.0
Battle.net 2.0 is the service behind StarCraft II and the Blizzard games that followed it. It replaced Classic Battle.net's single binary protocol with protobuf RPC over encrypted connections.
This section currently covers StarCraft II, which uses two connections:
| Connection | What it does | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Front | Signs in to the regional Battle.net service and picks the StarCraft II game account | Protobuf RPC in WebSocket messages, over TLS on TCP port 1119 |
| Sunken | Carries StarCraft II's own services: chat, matchmaking, profiles and more | Bit-packed records over a separate TCP connection, encrypted after sign-in |
Start here
- StarCraft II: signing in: the whole handoff from Front to Sunken, step by step.
- Front RPC: how Front messages are framed and routed.
- Front messages: the protobuf messages used while signing in.
- Sunken records: how Sunken packs each record into bits.
Signing in always requires a real Battle.net account. Front hands account challenges, such as multi-factor authentication, to Blizzard's own web sign-in. There is no way around it, and these pages describe the protocol, not ways to avoid it.