Even as World of Warcraft players prepare for the release later this year of Catalysm, the third expansion pack for Blizzard's hit MMO, its second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, is only now about to be released in one of the game's biggest countries China.

This week Blizzard and its current Chinese publishing partner Netease announced that Wrath of the Lich King would launch in that country on Tueday, August 31. Blizzard transferred control of the Chinese publishing rights to World of Warcraft to Netease in 2009 but not without some issues that kept the MMO offline in that country for a few months due to the Chinese government forcing some content changes to the game.