On Thursday, World of Warcraft announced on Chinese social media platform Weibo that a deletion-based technical test for the Chinese server will begin on June 11, in preparation for the upcoming server launch of the expansion set Wrath of the Lich King. The team also promised players an official China launch later in June.

Why it matters: June 6 marked 500 days since Blizzard’s servers went offline in China and 57 days since NetEase Games announced that a deal had been done to secure their return. Chinese gamers are eagerly following the latest updates on the return of Blizzard games to the mainland China market.

Details: The technical test for World of Warcraft’s domestic servers will last for seven days, with the final launch of the official servers still requiring some time, according to the announcement.

• To celebrate this moment, World of Warcraft’s China team has prepared two rewards for gamers participating in the test: a unique commemorative online pet and an exclusive achievement badge for the Chinese servers.
• On Weibo, some veteran players questioned the need for testing a hit game that has been around for over a decade, while others got emotional at the sight of the login interface of World of Warcraft. Furthermore, many players are urging the prompt return of other popular Blizzard games such as the digital collectible card game Hearthstone and the multiplayer first-person shooter title Overwatch.
• The pressure on servers for relaunching World of Warcraft might surpass that of new game launches, the team said in the announcement. Many players prefer returning to their original servers rather than joining new ones based on server loads. This server preference could result in login pressures on certain servers far surpassing the norm, potentially exceeding the server pressures during the initial launch of a new game, the team explained.
• Testing is also needed for new technology and server capacity expansion, according to the NetEase and Blizzard teams. “Over the past year, the server backend has undergone multiple updates, with new technologies planned for implementation in the future. These upgrades require further debugging in high-pressure environments to ensure smooth operation in the new environment,” the announcement added.

Context: On April 10, China’s NetEase and its US games partner Microsoft announced that they aimed to bring popular Blizzard titles back to China after the former’s falling out with the developer that ended an almost 15-year partnership. The two companies are now working to bring online games from Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard which Microsoft bought last year, back to China, starting this summer. 

• NetEase was the publisher of Blizzard games in China from 2008 to 2023.