Beloved superhero MMO City of Heroes is making a return as a community-run server for the game has been given an official license by developer NCSoft. City of Heroes first launched in 2004 but was shut down in 2012, to the chagrin of its dedicated fanbase.

The fan project is called City of Heroes: Homecoming, and was started in 2019 after the original source code for the game was discovered. For years, a group of fans have laboured to bring the game back on a private server. Past that, however, it even included new classes, features, and quality-of-life updates. The group has worked with the original developer NCSoft for over four years, and it’s paid off.

In an update on the Homecoming forums, an announcement reads

“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 team also posted a Q&A to help address questions the community might have. The big point here is that NCSoft could technically still demand the game shuts down, but the team says, “We’ve had a really positive and productive relationship with NCSOFT for over four years now, so we do not anticipate there being any issues.”

City of Heroes: Homecoming is completely free to play and is run on community donations. For the moment, the team doesn’t see that changing as paying any upfront or licensing fees to keep the game running is not required. But it’s also important to keep in mind the licensing deal is for the “Homecoming” server only, and any other fan servers won’t fall under its scope.

Equally impressive is that the team plans to continue development on Homecoming, and there won’t be any rollback, meaning anyone who has been playing will keep their character intact.

You can head to the official forums to learn more about the deal, and if you’re interested in playing City of Heroes: Homecoming, you can also find instructions there for installing and getting started.