The canceled World of Warcraft mobile spin-off won’t be the last

techradar.com:

Blizzard and Chinese mobile developer NetEase have reportedly axed an unannounced World of Warcraft mobile game after three years of development.

One of several new projects Blizzard has in the works(opens in new tab), the MMORPG would have been set in the World of Warcraft universe, but feature a different time period from the main game. As revealed in a report by Bloomberg(opens in new tab), NetEase and Blizzard canceled the project after coming to a dispute over financial terms.

The axed game wouldn’t have been a straight adaptation of the existing World of Warcraft MMORPG on PC, but a spin-off made for mobile. The project appears to have been fully laid to rest now though, with NetEase disbanding the game’s creative team of over 100 developers.

The cancellation of the unannounced project won’t mark the end of the franchise on mobile. It was only back in May that Blizzard announced Warcraft Arclight Rumble – an upcoming action strategy game set in a stylized version of the Warcraft universe. It looks to heavily ape the PvP and PvE gameplay of the hugely successful Clash Royale.

Blizzard has further plans for Warcraft mobile games, too. Last year, CEO Bobby Kotick said(opens in new tab) the publisher had “made multiple mobile free-to-play Warcraft experiences, and they’re now in advanced development”. He added that the publisher wanted to «create opportunities for existing players and new fans to experience the Warcraft universe in entirely new ways.”

Arclight Rumble and this now-canceled World of Warcraft spin-off were probably the frontrunners of that initiative. But they’re unlikely the only projects that Blizzard is secretly tinkering with to expand into the Chinese gaming market. Data analyst Statista(opens in new tab)