Project Epoch Reborn launches October 23, 2026. The server is closed right now, registration is open, and it runs on its own 3.3.5a build 12340 client that you supply.
The important word in that is Reborn. Project Epoch was one of the better-regarded custom Classic-plus servers of its era, and it is gone: the original project received a Blizzard cease and desist and shut down. What launches on October 23 is a community-run continuation, which is a different thing and worth being precise about: the team is restoring Epoch's quests, classes, dungeons and raids rather than reopening an archived realm.
Entry: Project Epoch: Reborn, dev, Vanilla-plus.
What is being restored, and what is new
The restoration side is Epoch's own: original quest chains, custom areas, reworked classes with custom spells and talent changes, and encounters that are being brought back and tested before launch.
Three systems are new to Reborn rather than carried over, and they are the interesting part.
Soul of Iron is a no-death run: reach level 60 without dying, tracked with milestone achievements. Explorer's Contract is the inverse, half experience for a slower route with milestone rewards. Together they are two ends of the same axis, and pairing a permadeath challenge with a deliberate slow-travel challenge is a better idea than either alone.
Racial Knowledge turns race into progression. You complete racial questlines to unlock new racial ability sets, then visit the Racial Knowledger at level 60 to choose from the sets you have earned. That is a meaningful change to how a character is built, because race stops being a pick at creation and becomes a set of choices spread across the first three levels.
Warmode is the world PvP layer: enlist to make open-world PvP part of the run, earn Bloody Tokens from kills, contest Hillsbrad, and carry a banner into a battleground or test yourself in the arena.
Access and money
Free to play, with no pay-to-win and no donor gear stated on the site. Registration is open, you use your own 3.3.5a client, and the Epoch launcher handles the custom files. The community is on Fluxer rather than Discord, which is worth knowing before you go looking for an invite.
The project is also recruiting openly: game masters, developers (C++ on the core, SQL and scripting on content, or tooling including Noggit world-building, Lua UI and Blender modelling), content creators and testers. For a revival project, an open call for core developers says more about the odds than any roadmap.
Why this is worth a date on a tracker
Classic-plus revivals are the reliable growth story in this scene right now, and they are also the easiest thing to get wrong. A launch date on a tracker is a promise, and promises expire quietly.
So: the date is October 23, 2026, from the project's own site, read September 28. If it slips, the entry says so and gets corrected with the old value struck through, which is the same standard we applied to Triumvirate's raid date this week.
Twenty-five days. A closed alpha is running now, which is the pattern that has worked for other revivals here.
SOURCES: Project Epoch Reborn's own homepage, feature and application pages, all first-party, read September 28, 2026. The October 23 date, the closed status, the no-pay-to-win claim, the challenge and racial systems, the 3.3.5a build 12340 client requirement and the Fluxer community are the project's own statements; none are independently verified. Our entry previously read only "Classic+ closed testing, community revival" with no date recorded.