Tencent copies World of Warcraft homework for its new MMO Tarisland

Tensions boiled over as Blizzard and NetEase ended their licensing deals in China, leaving World of Warcraft and all Blizzard’s IPs in the country to shut down this coming week. Taking advantage of this uncertainty and chaos, Chinese gaming giant Tencent has unveiled its new MMO called Tarisland. While it admittedly looks pretty funny, there’s just something oddly familiar about the title, and fans were quick to point it out.

The reveal trailer is full of extremely flashy World of Warcraft references. The world itself has a cartoonish look, with purple elves living on a giant tree, archer armor pulled straight from Sylvanas Windrunner, an evil dragon crashing menacingly atop two castle towers, and more. There’s even an airship battle where both vehicles look like they were copied and pasted from the Legion theatrical trailer. But the resemblance gets even worse when you check out YouTube’s closed beta footage.

Several videos from the beta show a race that looks strikingly like Tauren. They are even tribal in nature, with mounts literally descended from Tauren Kodos, complete with war drums strapped to their hind legs. Some of the footage shows a player exploring a floating magical city that exudes far more than just an atmosphere of Dalaran. The title even featured what appears to be the addition of dragon riding from World of Warcraft’s latest expansion. For most, this is all far too obvious to be an accident.

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World of Warcraft and other Blizzard titles will no longer be available in China starting January 23. While Tarisland doesn’t have a release date just yet, Tencent seems to be jumping on that loss to replace it with something too familiar. We hope Blizzard and NetEase settle their differences, or Chinese players will have to settle for a new MMO to call home.