City of Heroes Players Overjoyed as NCsoft Lets Fan Server Live

Source: NCSoft.

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It's been a long time coming, but players finally got legal confirmation of the return of City of Heroes. Homecoming Group informed of acquiring a license to run a server of the superhero MMORPG from NCsoft. Thus, the unofficial version of the game can not only operate almost without the risk of closure, but also the fan team can develop the game on its own.

The turbulent history of City of Heroes

City of Heroes debuted almost 20 years ago (in the US; it came to Europe in February 2005). The title was developed until 2012. In the meantime, it offered free-to-play gameplay (albeit with some limitations) and received two major expansions.

The title attracted players primarily with its superhero atmosphere (almost absent from MMO games to this day) and was warmly received by reviewers (via Metacritic). Unfortunately, the option to play without a paid subscription was not enough for it to hold its own in a market dominated by strong competition, most notably World of Warcraft. As a result, NCsoft closed City of Heroes servers, as well as Paragon, the studio responsible for the game.

Fans take matters into their own hands

Much later (in 2019), the code for a private City of Heroes server surfaced on the web, which was supposed to have been running in secret for many years (via Massively OP). The data was quickly disseminated, and while the first public server was eventually shut down, other servers promptly appeared in its place. Nevertheless, the threat of NCsoft blocking them remained real. The official license granted to the team greatly reduces the chance of such a move by the publisher.

Of course, Homecoming's agreement applies only to their server. It is unclear what this means for the other fan versions of CoH, but the group mentions "consolidating the user base" with players from other servers.

More details about NCcoft's license for Homecoming can be found in an announcement on the official server forum.