Back in 2019, we covered a heartwarming story about EQOA: Return Home, a player-run emulator for EverQuest Online Adventures, which readers will recall was one of the many online titles SOE killed off during the purge of 2012. At the time, the players were hunting both for coders and for former players with strong memories of the game’s maps to help recreate it for the rogue server, the completion of which was estimated to be several years away.
Several years later, progress has apparently been made. While the website itself says the project is still in pre-alpha and the forum is nonfunctional, there’s been a string of new videos over the last months – the most recent of which was last week – showing off the state of the game on its current test server. YouTuber JUDAHofJUDEA also just did a playthrough showing off what’s possible in there right now too, a video that made it all the way to Reddit.
MOP’s own Game Archaeologist did a deep-dive into EQOA a few years ago if you need a refresher on the game!
