(Yicai) June 7 -- Blizzard Entertainment has announced a test of its famous online game World of Warcraft in preparation for its much-anticipated re-release in China. 

The company will start a technical test for the game in China on June 11, and the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King launched in 2008 will be available to players later this month, it said on the World of Warcraft Weibo account.

The technical test will be open to all players and will not affect the game time in their accounts, Blizzard said. It will delete all test characters after the trial.

The Wrath of the Lich King will return before the official World of Warcraft because it takes less time to prepare, the US game developer explained, adding that World of Warcraft will come back online when all technical preparations are completed.

Some Chinese netizens complained that this test is a kind of hunger marketing, as there is still no clarity on the actual schedule for the re-release of World of Warcraft, which was removed in China last year following a dispute between Blizzard and its local partner NetEase.

After Microsoft acquired parent company Activision Blizzard for USD69 billion last year, plans were set in motion to bring World of Warcraft and other popular Blizzard games back to China, the world’s largest gaming market.

But for now, Blizzard, Microsoft Gaming, and NetEase have revealed only that the games will return slowly to the Chinese mainland market from this summer, based on updated game distribution agreements.

Editor: Tom Litting