World of Warcraft developer Blizzard has taken aim at one of the biggest WoW private servers, suing its creators for alleged copyright infringement and citing recent efforts to “cannibalize and disrupt Blizzard’s WoW player community.”
The server in question is Turtle WoW, an ambitious private-server version of 2006-era WoW that has been active since 2018 and features fan-made expansions, additional playable races and classes, and new zones. Turtle WoW’s creators recently made waves when it announced Turtle WoW 2.0, which aims to remake its version of the original, “vanilla” WoW in Unreal Engine 5. According to a Turtle WoW social media post, one of its most recent server launches hit 13,000 concurrent players.
Blizzard’s lawsuit, filed in California on August 29, alleges the creators of Turtle WoW have created “an entire business on large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement of Blizzard’s intellectual property.” While Turtle WoW is technically free, it does feature an in-game shop where players can donate to the developers in exchange for premium currency.
