Is it possible the World of Warcraft is still coming to mobile? There’s some new data that suggest that this may still be the case.
Last August, a report had come out that Blizzard and Chinese developer NetEase had cancelled their mobile World of WarCraft, after three years of development. This would have been a full MMO RPG playable in mobile. Instead of being a one is to one attempt to bring the original version of World of WarCraft to smartphones and tablets, the mobile World of WarCraft would have been set in a different time period. Neither Blizzard nor NetEase were willing to comment when asked, but the rumor going around was that the project ended over a disagreement in terms. This report also indicated that NetEase had disbanded a 100 member team over the cancellation.
Jumping to today, there are job listings for a new WarCraft mobile game, which have come up on Blizzard Entertainment’s very own website. They are currently looking for Senior / Principal Pipeline Technical Artists, and Senior / Principal Character Concept Artists. Blizzard is likely not lacking in artists per se, unless they are starting a new major project.
Last April, we reported on Blizzard teasing a new upcoming WarCraft mobile game. That turned out not to be a mobile version of World of WarCraft, but instead WarCraft Arclight Rumble, a strategy game similar to Clash Royale. Still, mobile is Blizzard’s current highest driver on revenue, so they have a huge incentive to bring World of WarCraft to the platform.
World of WarCraft itself continues to soldier on on PC since its launch in 2004. While no one will accuse the game of being unprofitable, at this point, there is definitely a ceiling to how far the game can still go on its sole platform.
This rumor seems to suggest that Blizzard Entertainment is interested in proceeding with World of WarCraft on their own, which is not unusual for the developer at all. Blizzard did hire NetEase to work on development of Diablo Immortal. However, the aforementioned WarCraft Arclight Rumble, and Blizzard’s big mobile hit, Hearthstone, were both internal projects within Blizzard.
Working with outside developers like NetEase makes it so that Blizzard has more free resources to work on more games, and focus on more important projects. Obviously, there is also a clear upside to Blizzard for making their games in house, including quality control, and greater control over the development process.
If Blizzard is ramping up to make this World of WarCraft mobile MMO RPG, it is highly likely that the scope of the game has become larger. Blizzard making a commitment to push forward indicates they have a lot of faith that their signature MMO RPG franchise will also be successful on mobile, and obviously that they’re more than capable of building it. Stay tuned to GameRanx for more news and rumors on this potential future World of WarCraft game.
