Warcraft, StarCraft theme park real?
A replica Naxxramas?!
A Chinese theme park featuring lavish Warcraft and StarCraft themed areas may be in development.
Dubbed Joyland, the theme park opens in May, according to the official website.
But there are no pictures of construction, only concept art - shouldn't a project on that scale, four months from completion, be a lot better documented? Some of the illustrated architecture appears to be of bamboozling complexity and ambition. Floating World of Warcraft dungeon Naxxramas is depicted in one shot - a castle atop an inverse pyramid, it's point secured by four great chains on each corner of the floating island.
Why wouldn't Blizzard have mentioned such a project? Presumably licensing talks were held.
Look more closely, and it's not at all clear whether Joyland actually exists in the real world - is this a giant virtual theme park? Sketchy translations of the Chinese website don't help.
Nevertheless, the areas mentioned for Joyland on the website are "Hero Gate", "Taobao Avenue," "Mysterious Island", "Moore Park", "Legend of the world", "Star Legend", "the mainland of Warcraft", "play family fun in Hong Kong" and "Temple Mount".
French website Gameblog (via G4TV) translated those areas as Terrain of Warcraft, Universe of StarCraft, Island of Mystery, World of Legend (a Chinese MMO) and Molesworld.
Joyland also plans to house a giant e-sports centre that aims to become a trade expo destination.
