Asheron's Call

Asheron's Call ACE is an open-source server emulator for Asheron's Call, the influential MMORPG originally released by Turbine and Microsoft in 1999. After the official Asheron's Call servers shut down in 2017, the community refused to let the game disappear. ACE became one of the most important projects keeping the game alive, recreating the server-side technology necessary to run Asheron's Call and allowing independent community servers to host the original experience.

That distinction is important: ACE isn't simply a remake of Asheron's Call. It is the foundation that allows the community to operate its own versions of the game. Players can connect to independently operated servers, each potentially offering its own rules, population, progression, and community while building upon the same underlying emulator.

And there's a lot worth preserving.

Asheron's Call was an unusually ambitious MMORPG for its era. Its world of Dereth is enormous and intentionally designed around exploration. Instead of constantly directing players toward the next quest objective, the game often expects you to investigate, experiment, and find your own way. Ancient ruins, dangerous dungeons, hidden locations, wandering monsters, and obscure pieces of lore give the world a sense of discovery that feels increasingly rare in modern MMOs.

Character development is similarly flexible. Rather than locking everyone into rigid traditional classes, Asheron's Call allows players to construct characters around individual skills and specializations. That freedom can produce unconventional builds and encourages experimentation rather than simply following a predetermined progression path.

The game's original development philosophy also makes it particularly interesting to preserve. Asheron's Call was famous for regularly evolving its world through substantial content updates and narrative events. Its history isn't just contained in a static campaign—it was shaped by years of changes, discoveries, conflicts, and community experiences.

ACE effectively gives that history somewhere to live.

Today, community-run ACE servers provide different ways to experience Asheron's Call, from servers focused on recreating the original game to communities that modify or expand its mechanics. The result is something more interesting than a museum piece: a classic MMO that remains playable because its players took responsibility for preserving it.