Chinese govt. rejects WOW: Lich King?

By Oli Welsh Published 11 March, 2009

Too many skeletons, apparently.

World of Warcraft's second expansion Wrath of the Lich King has been twice refused release by the Chinese government for censorship reasons, say reports.

That's according to Chinese web portal Sohu, as reported by JLM Pacific Epoch and spotted by Massively.

Sohu quoted an unnamed insider, saying that "content that didn't meet requirements" was the issue. "Skeleton characters" (already largely removed from the existing Chinese version of WOW) and "a city raid" were singled out for censors' opprobrium.

It's said that the new Death Knight hero class, one of the main selling points of the expansion, wasn't even included in the version submitted for approval by the game's Chinese operator, The9.

The Chinese censor's problem with undead imagery presents quite a hurdle for Wrath of the Lich King. The expansion is largely concerned with a crusade against the Scourge, a vast army of the undead.

Roughly a third of World of Warcraft's 11 million players are in Asia, and naturally a sizeable proportion of those are to be found in China, one of the world's biggest markets for online gaming.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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