Warcraft launches in Russia

Blizzard’s World Of Warcraft and its expansion The Burning Crusade have both finally seen a release in Russia.

The titles have been fully localised and allow consumers to begin playing on dedicated realms with the benefit of a Russian-language customer-support team.

The release is the fifth European-language version of World of Warcraft, complementing the existing English, French, German, and Spanish versions.

"The launch of the Russian-language version reflects our continuing commitment to make World of Warcraft even more accessible for gamers throughout the world," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment.

"We also hope that providing a fully localised version of the game will further enhance the gameplay experience for our enthusiastic Russian community."

Russian players have the option to subscribe to a dedicated Russian account, which has a reduced subscription-rate structure for the Russian market priced in rubles, and which allows players to access and create characters on Russian realms only.

Current European World of Warcraft players will be able to download a Russian-language pack from the official Russian website at www.warcraft.ru, which will let them access and create characters on the new Russian realms.