Blizzard confirms that skirmishes will return

Blizzard's recently recruited PvP designer Brian Holinka has confirmed via Twitter that skirmishes are coming back to WoW.

PvPers rejoice! Our unrated arenas will be making a return. They were removed in Cataclysm, for those who don't recall, and replaced with the current wargame system, which is great for players who want to face off against specific teams or comps, typically higher end players who have a good network of other PvPers, but far harder to use for players who only PvP casually, or don't really have many PvP contacts. A major downfall of the wargame system was that it required not just one, but two teams, so a minimum of four people, and those people had to be willing to split into two groups of two, and face off against each other. Certainly no great demand, but a good deal harder for the casual PvPer to pull off than simply hopping in a queue.

The skirmish system, although, or perhaps because, it awarded no points and no rating, was a great way to try out new classes, new comps, or new specs, and generally just have some fun in the arena without the pressure of dropping rating for your team. It was PvP for the sake of PvP, just because it's fun, and WoW Insider is thrilled to hear of their return, even if it's not in patch 5.3. We're holding out hope for patch 5.4, how about you?