After over a year of bad blood following the removal of most all Blizzard’s games from China, the World of Warcraft studio is poised to return to the country thanks to a new deal between Blizzard, Microsoft, and NetEase announced last week. Perhaps that absence made players’ hearts grow fonder because there’s already a mob waiting to rush back into these games.
According to Blizzard China, over two million players pre-registered for World of Warcraft over the span of two days. On top of that, the studio helped to recover 92,000 accounts and reactivated an additional 147,000 accounts while also receiving over 1,000 resumes from Chinese developers. Maybe they’ll restore the statue they busted now?
While the exact dates for relaunches are still up in the air, Blizzard confirmed the specific games: World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch 2, and Diablo IV are set to return to China. Even better, Microsoft’s involvement means that there’s an agreement to bring NetEase games to Xbox that’s in the works.
