Bloomberg reports that Blizzard has cancelled its upcoming World of Warcraft mobile game.
The game, codenamed Neptune, had been in development for three years and was to be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the World of Warcraft universe.
However, a disagreement over terms between Blizzard and co-developer NetEase has reportedly stopped the project in its tracks.
Bloomberg sources claim that a team of over 100 NetEase developers working on the project has been disbanded, and not all of these developers were offered internal transfers.
NetEase and Activision Blizzard both declined to comment to Bloomberg on the report.
The reported cancellation of Neptune has raised fresh concerns over Blizzard’s relationship with NetEase – a partnership that gives Blizzard the ability to operate effectively in the huge Chinese mobile gaming market.
NetEase publishes a variety of Blizzard’s gaming franchises in the country, and was a co-developer on Blizzard’s Diablo Immortal mobile game – which despite criticisms over its monetization model, has a major commercial success