Overview
- Blizzard filed a federal lawsuit in California on June 12 that names six individual defendants and several alleged shell companies and accuses Project Ascension of copyright infringement, DMCA violations, and RICO conspiracy.
- The complaint says Project Ascension distributed millions of pirated copies, drew over a million players, and made “millions” from an in‑game currency called Donation Points that buys cosmetics and boosts.
- Blizzard alleges Project Ascension used an 'Ascension Client' to bypass Blizzard’s servers and security so players could play without a World of Warcraft subscription.
- The suit claims the servers were hosted on Aeza Group’s so‑called bulletproof hosting, a provider the U.S. Treasury sanctioned in 2025, and asks the court to freeze assets and force disclosure of additional identities.
- This action follows Blizzard’s earlier legal win that closed Turtle WoW and could push other fan servers to shut, revive calls from some developers for a formal licensing framework, and affect thousands of players and volunteer devs.