Wrath of the Lich King gets rejected by skeleton-hating Chinese censors.
World of Warcraft (WoW) has always had an uneasy time in China. While it is often used as the example when referring to the internet addiction epidemic sweeping the country, China’s issues with WoW are largely content-based. More specifically, there is an issue with skeletons, which has, in the past, led to a China-only graphical touch up job on the decomposing corpse-stylings of characters belonging to the Forsaken faction. It has also led to skeletons left by dead players turning into gravestones in the Chinese game client.
In the past, these changes have been enough to sate the concerns of the Chinese government. However, it now seems that Blizzard has managed to piss off said government by releasing an expansion pack that is full to the brim of undead. In hindsight, it makes a lot of sense that there would be censorship-based issues with Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK), however, until now, the reason given for a lack of a Chinese launch has been contractual issues with The9, who runs WoW there.
It appears that the version of the game submitted for approval had already made some pretty massive compromises. One of the major selling points of WotLK is the new death knight class, which has been completely excised for China. But according to a report from JLM Pacific Epoch, issues were raised that apparently focus upon the skeletal characters and a ‘city raid’ that seems to refer to one of the pivotal storyline moments of the expansion, the ‘Wrathgate’ quest chain.
In hindsight, it seems pretty obvious that an expansion pack named after the leader of Azeroth’s undead hordes would have difficulties in a culture that objected to the undead characters already in the game. While the return of the Lich King is an obvious extension of the storyline from Warcraft III, concerns have often been raised that Blizzard already lets the Chinese market influence what does and doesn’t make it into WoW.
Perhaps the largest of these has been the conspicuous absence of the Pandaren race from the game. These beer-obsessed anthropomorphic pandas started out as a joke in the Warcraft games, and became one of the more beloved races by players. Yet, the only mention of them in reference to WoW was the Pandaren Xpress April fools joke a few years ago, and that was entirely website-based. The most famous brewmasters in Azeroth don’t even turn up during brewfest, the WoW version of Oktoberfest.
It has never really been made clear whether China’s issues with Pandaren revolve around a culture of Panda worship or whether it is the heavy Japanese influence that comes through in clothing and combat styles. Regardless, this is one of the more publicised areas in which the Chinese have influenced the direction of WoW’s development.
One wonders whether Wrath of the Lich King will ever make it out in the Chinese market. Not only has Blizzard already excised the entire death knight class, the ‘city raid’ is part of what is described as the major story-point ending the first ‘act’ of the expansion. Plus, the continent of Northrend is swarming with undead, exposed bones and all.
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