The more things change...

Not willing to comment on whether they consider the name the most broken part of the game, Vitrium LLC nonetheless announced that the game formerly known as "Horizons: Empire of Istaria" is now to be called "Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted".

"We've always felt that it made more sense to have a name that reflected what the game was about," said Rick Simmons, President of Virtrium. "And our game is about Istaria, and the stories of the people who inhabit the world. It's always been confusing why the name of the game was "Horizons", but our website domain was "istaria.com", and our main focus was about Istaria and the Gifted. We've decided to change the name so that it makes a little more sense."

The game, originally developed by Artifact Entertainment, was purchased by Virtrium in September, 2007. Since then the development team has brought new life back to a world many thought of as stagnant, and even dying. "We've seen some real growth in the game in our first few months of ownership," Mr. Simmons said, "Players have responded well to this growth, with many of them returning to the game and official forums to comment."

Read the press release in its entirety at the Horizons... er, Istaria official site.