Diablo Immortal Under Fire In China For Allegedly Mocking Xi Jinping On Social Media

Blizzards new free-to-play title, Diablo Immortal is currently facing backlash in China after the games official Weibo account made a post that seemed to mock the countrys president, Xi Jinping.

The Weibo account for Diablo Immortal was accused of mocking Xi after it posted a question on May 22 that read: “Why hasn’t the bear stepped down?”. For context, many of Xis critics refer to him as the famous cartoon bear, Winnie the Pooh.

Thus, people assumed that the message was directed at Xi.

In China, social media activity is heavily regulated. This means that any insults or even criticisms of the countrys leaders will not be tolerated by the authorities.

Diablo Immortal was originally scheduled to release in China on June 23. Blizzard’s partner in China, NetEase, said the reason for the delay was due to technical issues in the game that had to be dealt with.

However, it now seems possible that the real reason for the delay may have been due to the backlash that the Weibo post has caused.

Video games in China are already facing a large amount of scrutiny from the government, so any potential insults could result in a permanent ban of the game. But there has been no official announcement yet of Diablo Immortal being banned in the country.