Blizzard files lawsuit against World of Warcraft Classic+ server Turtle WoW

World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against the owners of a network of fan-operated private servers that host an alternate version of the game, known as Turtle WoW.

Blizzard filed the lawsuit on August 29, 2025, in the District Court for the Central District of California and alleged that the group illegally utilizes Blizzard’s code, trademarks, and assets, with claims that “Turtle WoW’s unauthorized servers harm the player experience in several ways.”

The case has been documented under docket number 2:25-cv-08914 and includes claims of copyright and trademark infringement, as well as alleged racketeering.

According to the company, Turtle WoW does this by fragmenting the WoW community, creating confusion, and posing as a potential security risk to players.

Blizzard further elaborated that it has spent an enormous amount of time and money into creating, maintaining, and updating World of Warcraft, and iterates that the defendants “have built an entire business on a large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement of Blizzard’s intellectual property.”

Turtle WoW began its operations in 2018 as a free client for players and accepted donations through its website. The servers feature custom content, mods, and fan-made expansion stories for World of Warcraft vanilla that delve deeper into exploring the game’s original lore.

Blizzard further maintains that “Through Turtle WoW, defendants have found a lucrative way to exploit and profit from the popularity of the WoW game experience. Specifically, Turtle WoW purports to offer to the public paid access to a group of unauthorized, ‘emulated’ WoW game servers, as well as all of the software and other tools necessary to access and use these emulated servers, including pirated copies of WoW that have been modified to work with its unauthorized servers.”

The creators had also started promoting an upcoming project, dubbed Turtle WoW 2.0, which they describe as “the Vanilla WoW client fully replicated in Unreal Engine 5.” Reports indicate that Turtle WoW has garnered significant popularity as one of the longest-running Classic+ private servers, with a reported peak of over 13,000 players and, allegedly, hundreds of thousands of overall users.

In a surprise twist, Turtle WoW responded via Discord and assured fans that the game is “going nowhere” and that the team is prepared to face legal action. However, Blizzard is seeking a complete shutdown of Turtle WoW, including the confiscation of all copies of its project data, a full transfer of earnings, and relinquishment of the Turtle WoW domain, as well as statutory damages and other fees.