The complaint accuses the operators of Project Ascension of monetizing through Donation Points that sell in-game currency for cosmetics and boosts, generating millions in revenue.

The case highlights a pattern of Blizzard lawsuits against private WoW communities, including the August 2024 action against TurtleWoW that pressured similar projects to cease operations.

Defendants include individuals, two U.S. shell companies, an anonymous donation-handling group, and unnamed Doe defendants tied to online usernames.

Blizzard says Project Ascension has a massive community, with over 226,000 Discord members and typical concurrent activity exceeding 60,000 users, and that the Ascension client bypasses server checks to redirect players to Blizzard’s servers.

Project Ascension is alleged to be hosted on Aeza Group’s Russian ‘bulletproof’ hosting, a company sanctioned in 2025 for aiding cybercriminal activity.

Plaintiffs note willful intent by operators to engage in unlawful activity, citing the Aeza Group hosting as part of the dispute.

The lawsuit accuses copyright and DMCA violations, false representation, interference with contracts, and racketeering related to the server’s profitable operation.

Project Ascension lets players mix spells and skills from multiple classes, creating custom builds and new dungeon/raid variants, PvP with corpse loot, and challenge modes.

By enabling multi-class builds and user-created content, Ascension bypasses Blizzard’s class system and has attracted a large user base.

The suit asserts copyright and DMCA violations and notes revenue from Donation Points used for cosmetics and XP boosts.

Blizzard contends the project is a lucrative venture, claiming over a million players and millions of pirated copies of Blizzard’s software in circulation.

Blizzard has filed a 51-page lawsuit in the Central District of California seeking to shut down Project Ascension, a popular private World of Warcraft server, following a prior action against TurtleWoW.