Blizzard May Be Teaming Back Up With NetEase To Bring Its Games Back To China

After all the drama between Blizzard and NetEase, it looks like the two companies may be starting out the New Year on more friendly footing. For those who don’t remember, the World of Warcraft developer had a massive falling out with their Chinese publisher, resulting in its games being pulled out of the country and a lot of angry words and actions – like NetEase tearing down their World of Warcraft statue. It also had additional fallout in the form of a player suing Blizzard for $43.5 million.

Of course, since then, the Microsoft merger has gone through and Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick finalized his departure date. His last day is tomorrow, January 29, so feelings may have shifted a bit.

At least they seem to be, according to a report from 36kr (translated by WCCFTech) which states that Blizzard will be partnering with NetEase again to bring its games back to China. This makes sense, as it seems unlikely that Microsoft would spend all that money and time on the merger and be happy with Blizzard’s games being shut out of a major region.

As WCCFTech points out, however, just making a new deal isn’t going to be enough. When Blizzard pulled out of China, they laid off teams, shut down servers, and the like. Now, they’re going to have to build all of that backup. Granted, some of the original staff might be available, which would make things a bit easier, but that’s not something they can count on.