Blizzard is suing another private World of Warcraft server, Project Ascension. The lawsuit filed on Friday in a California court by Blizzard lawyers alleges copyright infringement and says the server has over a million players. The nine complaints leveled against Project Ascension include:
- Copyright infringement
- Inducement to infringe copyrights
- Contributory copyright infringement
- Vicarious copyright infringement
- Violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright
- Intentional interference with contractual relations
- False designation of origin
- Participation in Rico Enterprise
- Engaging in a Rico Conspiracy
According to Blizzard lawyers, the defendant undermines the studio’s intellectual property by seeking to profit from the game. The filing states that Blizzard “has a long history of finding ways to support safe, legal, and respectful expressions of player creativity within WoW,” which the defendant doesn’t abide by.
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“The Defendants in this action have built an entire business on large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement of Blizzard’s intellectual property,” the lawyers alleged.
“Defendants are in the for-profit business of developing, operating, maintaining, and monetizing an unauthorized copycat version of WoW known as ‘Project Ascension’. Through Project Ascension, Defendants have found aa lucrative way to exploit and profit from the popularity of the WoW game experience.”
Six defendants (largely US residents) were named in the lawsuit, alongside various companies they said existed “solely as a conduit for monetary transactions and to avoid U.S. tax liability for revenue related to Project Ascension”.
How Project Ascension profits and bypasses Blizzard servers
Listing some of the ways Project Ascension profits from the service, Blizzard lawyers said they offer paid access to a “group of unauthorized, ‘emulated’ private WoW game servers”, including the software and tools needed to use the emulated servers and pirated copies of WoW software, which was modified to work on the unauthorized servers.
World of Warcraft lets players pick a class during the character creation process. The class affects their playstyle throughout the campaign. In Project Ascension, players can combine pieces of WoW classes to build unique characters. While free-to-play, players can purchase in-game currency to acquire cosmetics and experience boosts.
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To access the private servers of Project Ascension, players must download the ‘Ascension Client’, which bypasses the need to connect to the authentic WoW servers. Consequently, players don’t need a WoW subscription.
“Project Ascension also has caused significant and irreparable harm to Blizzard,” said the lawyers in the complaint. “This harm includes, but is not limited to, lost revenue from former WoW players who have been diverted to Project Ascension in order to avoid paying subscription fees to Blizzard and harm to Blizzard’s valuable intellectual property, which is being exploited, modified, and monetized without Blizzard’s consent and in ways that Blizzard disapproves and prohibits.”
Last year, WoW maker shut down the Turtle WoW server, which had been running since 2018. Before its shuttering, the project was taking donations from players. The details of the settlement, announced by both sides in April 2026, was not made public.
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