On 14 June 2026 Massively Overpowered reported that Blizzard Entertainment had filed a lawsuit to take down Project Ascension, the long-running classless World of Warcraft emulator. The action followed a cease-and-desist and came just weeks after Turtle WoW and Stormforge had closed under legal pressure.
On 29 June Blizzard moved the case forward by sending motion and summons requests, signalling that it intended to pursue the matter rather than settle immediately.
Ascension was, by most tracking sites, the most populated private server in the world in 2026, with tens of thousands of concurrent players across its classless Vanilla, TBC and Wrath realms and the "Conquest of Azeroth" project with 21 custom classes. Its scale and its cash shop made it a natural next target after the Turtle WoW precedent.
The case ended in a "mutual agreement": on 29 August 2026 Ascension announced that all WoW realms would permanently shut down on 4–5 September 2026, and two days later revealed plans to turn Ascension into an original MMO.