City of Heroes: Homecoming Gets Official Licenses
NCSoft did something surprising several days ago when it announced it was not planning to kill the City of Heroes private server. Instead, it provided the developers with a license to continue maintaining the City of Heroes private server. The Homecoming team made the announcement on January 4, 2024.
After teasing in 2019 that it was in talks with NCSoft about the project, the team behind the private server thanked fans for their patience. Homecoming has been one of the most played fan servers for video game.
“Homecoming has been granted a license to operate a City of Heroes server and further develop the game – subject to conditions and limitations under the contract – but, as between us and NCSoft, NCSoft still owns the City of Heroes intellectual property and its derivatives,” the devs behind the project explained in a forum post.
As part of the agreement, NCSoft guarantees that players’ data will not be accessed and that the Homecoming team will continue to improve the game. Players are reassured that the game will remain free, but the amount of money NCSoft receives remains unknown.
City of Heroes continues to be owned by NCSoft, allowing for a possible future PC MMOs or mobile games. The Homecoming development team confirmed that implementing a single “in-house installation and patching solution” is required, and this was the reason it developed its launcher.
Notably, there are still many questions and details to work out, but overall, the reaction has been positive. Surprisingly, fans have taken on the responsibility of saving a game, and it shows that there is still hope for MMOs after they shut down.
A surprising turn of events and a rare example of fans officially keeping a game alive shows that there is a way to preserve MMOs after they have closed.NCSOFT and their fans have brought back a great video game in an unprecedented agreement.