Developer Turbine Entertainment surprised its fans today by relaunching massively multiplayer online game Asheron's Call 2, which went offline in 2005. The developer announced on its forums today that it had opened a new server for the game, which is accessible for free by anyone with an active subscription to the original Asheron's Call.
Asheron's Call producer Robert "Severlin" Ciccolini wrote on the game's official forums that the new Asheron's Call 2 server Dawnsong is in beta and that Turbine was unable to resurrect players' old characters.
"Although the server has passed our initial tests, we have a lot of monitoring and tweaking to do to the game environment and we want to ensure that our players understand that," Ciccolini wrote. "This game service will be provided as a beta for all players with an active Asheron's Call account. That said, the game server is currently up and running. So join us for a nostalgic trip back to a Dereth where the golden age was not interrupted."
A link to download the Asheron's Call 2 Windows client is available from the game's forums.
Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings was originally published by Microsoft in 2002 and shut down three years later. The original Asheron's Call continues to this day, 13 years after its launch.