The big, totally unofficial World of Warcraft Unreal Engine 5 remake Turtle WoW 2.0 has gone belly up

If you thought there was even the slightest chance of getting to play World of Warcraft remade in Unreal Engine 5 this Christmas, boy, do I have the ammunition to ruin what's left of the festive period. While the team suggested a December launch was on the cards back in June, Turtle WoW 2.0 - the bewilderingly ambitious plan to remake one of the best MMORPGs ever, Chain Lightning and all, has decided to, well… take a fatal hit instead.

Mere months after dropping a spit-shined trailer for an unofficial World of Warcraft remake known as Turtle WoW 2.0, the team behind it took to Twitter on Friday December 19 to announce that the project will not be moving forward.

"Dear players," it begins, "we have a difficult announcement to make. After extensive discussions and consideration of the direction we want for Turtle WoW, we have reached a difficult decision. Effective today, our development agreement with Unreal Azeroth for the production of the Turtle WoW 2.0 client is permanently discontinued. We want to thank the Unreal Azeroth team for their lasting enthusiasm and dedication to this incredible challenge, and we apologize to everyone who was excited about the release."

There's little here to suggest what exactly has caused the team to abandon a project that garnered close to 200,000 views on YouTube from September. And with the Turtle WoW team being so brazen as to release the footage amid ongoing court proceedings with Blizzard over the wider Turtle WoW project, it isn't easy to simply point the finger at the IP holder. What's also unclear is whether this cancellation applies to just Turtle WoW 2.0 - the porting of the current Turtle WoW fork into Unreal Engine 5 - or the original Unreal Azeroth project Turtle WoW was piggybacking. There's a difference, apparently.

But what's done is done. Just shy of three months after putting the project out there for the world to see, it's over. Dead. And for the hundreds of commenters on the trailer, who were clearly looking forward to seeing more, that has to sting. The reception was good. Great, even. "This is what is thought it looked like in 2004 when I was 14," said one.

And you know what? I get it. As a teenager who finally jumped in during the Burning Crusade era, the Turtle WoW 2.0 trailer did look how I remembered my early days journeying around Azeroth. And that's also why I just don't see the appeal here.

As someone who can still gleefully launch WoW Classic and adore the world I drop into, this Unreal Engine 5 project feels just as pointless as any other attempt to "remake" classic games in a free engine known for its fancy lighting effects and performance woes. Not because it saps the carefully curated vibe of a classic game for simple "X but in 4K" internet points, but because it really does just look like the game I've already played for thousands of hours.

It may be the end of the World of Warcraft HD remake dream for now, but it's not the end of the Turtle WoW story. In fact, the 2.0 demise announcement was shortly followed up by another - a migration of the Turtle WoW website. Goodbye turtle-wow.org and long live turtlecraft.gg.

If this whole Turtle WoW business is news to you, here's the skinny: Turtle WoW is a tad more than a private World of Warcraft server - the sort that spurred Blizzard to launch WoW Classic in the first place. Not only is it a way to play the game without buying a license or paying its monthly fee, but its unofficial expansion, Mysteries of Azeroth, expands the Classic experience by curtailing the Burning Crusade expansion in favor of stories rooted in the Warcraft 3 lexicon. Fresh race combinations let Orcs take on the Mage mantle, for example, with non-Classic races like Goblins and High Elves being a standout feature, too.

With Blizzard sending its lawyers at Turtle WoW as we speak, it's hard to say just how long the reimagined experience could be around for. So if the demise of the Unreal Engine 5 effort hasn't already spoiled your appetite for adventure, it might be best to look in on Turtle WoW before it's too late.