Project Epoch Reborn is launching October 23, 2026, and sixteen days out nothing on its homepage has moved.
What the site says
Realm status Closed. Launching Oct 23rd, 2026. Free to play, community-run continuation of the Project Epoch custom Classic+ server, restoring custom content for a new chapter.
The feature set is stated plainly: reworked classes with custom spells and talents, racial questlines unlocking ability sets through a Racial Knowledger at level 60, original quest chains, new settlements, rare creatures and custom items.
What it does not say
Name reservations. A third-party tracker reports beta testers could reserve names from October 2. Nothing on the homepage, the FAQ excerpt, or the visible announcements confirms it, and the forums where launch news lives need an account to read.
So the reservation window is a third-party claim sitting next to a first-party launch date. The date we can hold them to; the reservations we cannot confirm, and we are saying so rather than repeating the claim as fact.
Why this one matters more than a date check
Epoch Reborn is a community revival of a shut-down project, run by volunteers rather than the original team, restoring custom content rather than operating a codebase. That is a harder launch than a fresh realm: the content has to be rebuilt, the community has to return, and the launch has to survive contact with players who remember the original.
Sixteen days with no movement on the homepage is neutral information. It is not slipping and it is not accelerating. The re-check happens on the date.
SOURCES: project-epoch.org, read October 7 2026 with a control domain probed in the same batch. Launch date, realm status and feature descriptions are the project's own statements. The October 2 reservation claim is third-party and labelled as such. Related: the October content drops, the correction policy, and the grading scale.