WoW Finally Returns To China, With A Little More Censorship

Just in case you’re not one of the millions of Chinese subscribers to World of Warcraft who already knows this, here’s a recap; the game recently changed operators in the PRC, and as a result had been down for weeks.

But now it’s back! And, as we told you a few weeks back, it’s back with a catch: some of the game’s content has been edited by the local authorities. But just what are the extent of those changes?

Blood has changed colours, and is now black instead of red. Undead characters remain edited, so as to appear less “dead”. Talent tree icons depicting stuff like bones have been edited. And piles of bones you find in the game are now…piles of sandbags. Yes. Sandbags.

MMOSite have good photos depicting the scope of the edits, the most notable of which we’ve run at the top (original) and bottom (Chinese edit) of this post.

WOW(CN) 3.1.3 CB: Blood Turn Black, Icons Become Boxes? [MMOSite, via Gamasutra]