The delayed game is now expected to launch in China on July 25th
Diablo Immortal, the free-to-play Diablo game for mobile and PC, was delayed in China last month because of a social media post that could be interpreted as criticism of Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to Bloomberg.
The post, which came from the official Diablo Immortal Weibo account, reportedly alluded to Winnie the Pooh, who has been banned from the internet in China because he is used to make fun of the president. Bloomberg says the account has since been suspended for “violating relevant laws and regulations.”
Diablo Immortal is now set to launch in China on July 25th, though the date could still shift, Bloomberg reports. The game, which was co-developed by Blizzard Entertainment and Chinese tech giant NetEase, has been out for more than a month in many countries, but was delayed just a few days before its scheduled June 23rd Chinese release. In a short post about the delay on its Chinese website, Blizzard said (via a translation from Google Translate) that the development team would be making optimizations to the game but did not reference the social media post.
Even though Diablo Immortal hasn’t come out in China yet, Blizzard said in June that the game had the “biggest launch in franchise history.” But the game has received some criticism for how much it costs to upgrade your character and launching with some bugs when playing on Samsung devices with Exynos chips.
