Bloomberg reports that Blizzard’s World of Warcraft mobile game has been canned due to financial reason. Rather a spin-off of the popular MMORPG than a standard port, the game was developed by Blizzard and NetEase. The report mentions that NetEase has already decided to disband the 100-member team working on the project. Apparently, Blizzard and NetEase could not agree to terms of the deal and ultimately decided to part ways.
With the upcoming release of a new World of Warcraft expansion and the anticipated release of Diablo IV next year, Blizzard has a rather full calendar. The US-based developers, though, also have a few mobile projects in the works. One of these initiatives, Warcraft Arclight Rumble, an action-strategy game set in the Warcraft universe, was already announced a few months ago. But despite the most recent information suggesting otherwise, there were other Warcraft mobile games being developed at Blizzard.
Highlights
This is the second mobile project canned by Blizzard after the Warcraft mobile game based on geolocation that was reportedly canceled earlier this year. As per Bloomberg’s report, the game codenamed Orbis was in development for more than four years.
Codenamed Neptune, the game was in development for more than three years and sources familiar with the project claim it was looking very good, which made the decision even more surprising for those involved in the development process.
