World of Warcraft Expansion 'Mists of Pandaria' Passes China Inspection, Set for Release

Lending some more credence to yesterday’s rumors that World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria might be releasing in China on September 25 (the same day as the rest of the world), Sina Tech reported yesterday afternoon that the expansion has already officially passed China’s Ministry of Culture’s inspection process. That should mean the game is more or less ready to be released, and there’s no reason it couldn’t be released on September 25, although Blizzard has yet to announce that this will be the expansion’s official release date.

A Blizzard product launching worldwide and in China at the same time would be almost unprecedented (case in point: Diablo 3 still hasn’t been released in China yet). But Mists of Pandaria may have been able to pass through the Ministry of Culture more quickly than other Blizzard titles because its art design and characters are less objectionable. Most of Blizzard’s previous offerings were a bit more gruesome and morbid than the brightly-colored Pandaria, which probably made it much more palatable to the MOC.

Blizzard hopes the China-inspired Mists of Pandaria will help counteract flagging interest in its hugely popular but ancient-by-gaming-standards MMORPG. Netease, the operator of World of Warcraft in China, has seen decreases in World of Warcraft playing time and revenue over the first half of this year, and so is also hoping the expansion will bring Chinese gamers back into the fold.

[via Sina Tech]