Everquest maker Daybreak Games is suing the creators of a popular Everquest emulator called The Heroes’ Journey, accusing the company of copyright infringement and other DMCA violations. The original complaint was filed in June in a California court and was first reported by gaming outlet Massively OP. In new documents filed this week, Daybreak Games’ lawyers suggest that the existence of The Heroes’ Journey threatens “the very existence of EverQuest itself.”
The Heroes’ Journey is one of dozens of EverQuest servers in operation, the majority of which are made possible due to an open-source project called EverQuest Emulator. It’s the most popular EverQuest server, according to EQ Emulator, with more than 2,000 active users at the time of writing. Some of these fan-run EverQuest servers run with permission from Daybreak Games, such as Project 1999, which made an agreement with Daybreak Games in 2015. After the lawsuit was filed, one EverQuest emulator called Project Quarm shut down preemptively; it’s now come back online with permission from Daybreak Games, so long as it’s not-for-profit.
The key piece for Project 1999 and Project Quarm, for Daybreak Games, appears to be that they’re not-for-profit — meaning they don’t make money, whereas The Heroes’ Journey does, on top of it competing with the original EverQuest game. The other issue, which lawyers explain in the original complaint from June, is that The Heroes’ Journey reportedly requires players to run the EverQuest client and mods it to access the unauthorized server. Daybreak Games says the mods “constitute unauthorized derivative works of Daybreak’s copyrighted software and circumvent technological measures implemented by Daybreak to control access to its copyrighted works.”
EverQuest was originally released in 1999 as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Its experience hinges on a lot of people playing it at once; the social element is a core function of the game. EverQuest is free-to-play, though it also has a premium membership plan that gives players different perks. Daybreak Games had previously been denied a temporary restraining order that would have taken The Heroes’ Journey offline through the next phase of the lawsuit, and later agreed to an order that instead prevented The Heroes’ Journey from getting major updates and forced revenue into an escrow account while the lawsuit is ongoing. In Daybreak Games’ latest filing, a motion for preliminary injunction, the company seeks to have The Heroes’ Journey taken down because it claims that its existence is a threat to EverQuest due to a reduction in Daybreak Games' EverQuest playerbase; damages for monetary harm aren’t enough, lawyers wrote.
“At the same time that EverQuest has experienced unprecedented decline, THJ has grown exponentially due to the direct theft of EverQuest users,” lawyers wrote.
It’s not clear how many players EverQuest currently has, and portions of the documents that discuss it are redacted. (In 2020, EverQuest had 82,000 monthly active players and 66,000 playing members, per an earnings report. Aftermath has not been able to locate player numbers in the years that followed.) The newly filed documents imply that the existence of The Heroes’ Journey has led to a decrease in EverQuest players; “Since THJ’s launch in late 2024, [redacted],” lawyers wrote. “A decline in user base not only causes a decline in revenue to Daybreak but also damages the entire gaming experience which depends, by definition, on the simultaneous play by thousands of users. This drop in users has irreversible ripple effects across the entire gaming experience, creating a downward spiral that will be impossible to reverse. Each day of delay allows Defendants to continue diverting players and revenue from Daybreak’s legitimate EverQuest service.”
They continued, “As a result of the damage that Defendants have already caused and are continuing to cause, [redacted.] This is the exact type of irreparable harm that preliminary injunctions are designed to prevent.”
Indeed, in a separate filing, Daybreak Games attorney Nicholas Janda spends two pages discussing how much players love The Heroes’ Journey, using comments from YouTube, Reddit, and other social media. “Hands down the best thing that has ever happened to the game,” read one YouTube comment Janda cited. “Never going back to original EQ again.” Another person wrote, as cited by Janda: “The day I started THJ I stopped my EQ subs.”
Daybreak Games claims The Heroes’ Journey has more than 30,000 users. That’s a huge increase since its launch in late 2024; Janda said Daybreak Games received an anonymous email in December 2024 that stated The Heroes’ Journey had 2,000 users and was making $20,000 per month. Lawyers are drawing a line that they say shows “a clear correlation between THJ’s growth and the decline in official EverQuest server populations.” Daybreak Games is asking the court to force The Heroes’ Journey offline, take its GitHub repositories down, and cease operation of its website while the lawsuit is ongoing.
“Player departure creates an accelerating effect where each departing [EverQuest] player makes the remaining experience less attractive, encouraging additional departures,” lawyers wrote. “As guild membership declines, group activities become harder to organize, and the social ecosystem that originally attracted players deteriorates. This acceleration means that early intervention is critical — once the exodus reaches a certain threshold, it becomes extremely difficult to reverse.”
Neither Daybreak Games nor the makers of The Heroes’ Journey have responded to Aftermath’s request for comment. But The Heroes’ Journey’s Discord server displays the following statement:
The Heroes’ Journey is currently subject to pending litigation brought by Daybreak Game Company LLC regarding intellectual property and other related matters. While that case proceeds, a Stipulated Order found here has been agreed to by the Parties in that litigation and is subject to enforcement by the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
We know this has been stressful for many of you, but please know that you are not alone. We are doing everything in our power to see this through to a positive outcome for our community and all involved parties.
The Heroes’ Journey website contains a similar statement.
In a follow-up statement published on Discord on July 14, the makers confirmed they are taking donations that will go toward legal defense. Ozuri, an advisor for The Heroes’ Journey who worked on EverQuest until 2004, told Aftermath that the community support for The Heroes’ Journey has been overwhelming — unlike anything they've seen in more than 25 years in the video game industry.
“I’m a 47 year old jaded gamer, and I’ve been on the internet a long time, but I’ve ugly cried more than once reading the stories of the impact THJ has had on people and what it has meant for them and their lives,” Ozuri said. “We are grateful and oh so humbled by our community that seems deeply emotionally invested in [The Heroes’ Journey.]”
