Azeroth Survivors on GitHub - The Source Behind the Game
Azeroth Survivors runs on benilla, an open-source WoW 1.12.1 client written in Rust and Bevy, compiled to WebAssembly. When the official realm shows a capacity message, the GitHub repos are how you run your own copy.
The three repos that matter
| Repo | What it is |
|---|---|
| OutThisLife/azeroth-survivors-re | The one you want: a from-source local build of the survivors game itself. make build then make start gives you a fully offline copy at http://127.0.0.1:8090/ - no server, no login, no capacity queue. MIT/Apache licensed. |
| samwhosung/benilla | The upstream engine: a complete WoW 1.12.1 client written from scratch in Rust and Bevy - terrain, models, networking, the stock FrameXML/Lua UI. It's what the survivors mode is built on. |
| Arnesen/wenilla | The fork that compiles benilla to WebAssembly plus a realm service - this is the tech that lets the game run in a browser tab over WebGPU. |
Running your own copy
- 1Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/OutThisLife/azeroth-survivors-re- you need Rust, make, curl, unzip and a bash shell (Git Bash on Windows; PowerShell and cmd can't run the scripts). - 2make build
Chains three scripts: fetches the WoW 1.12.1 client data (about a 5.5 GB download), installs the wasm toolchain, and builds the client into
web/dist/. Each step skips what's already done, so it's safe to rerun. - 3make start
Opens the game at
http://127.0.0.1:8090/- same classes, same battlegrounds, fully offline and self-contained.
Worth knowing before you build
- It downloads real game data. The fetch script pulls the WoW 1.12.1 client to read its MPQs - the repo redistributes nothing Blizzard-owned, it reads files you fetch yourself.
- It's a re-implementation, not leaked code. benilla writes every format reader and the network protocol from scratch - that's why it's the engine people are actually excited about.
- WebGPU is required for the world rendering - same requirement as the hosted game.
- Addons aren't a thing here. benilla's engine can run WoW 1.12.1 Lua addons, but the survivors mode exposes no addon API.
FAQ
Is Azeroth Survivors open source?
The engine is - benilla and the wenilla browser fork are public. The azeroth-survivors-re repo packages a local build of the survivors game on top of them, MIT/Apache licensed.
Can I really play offline?
Yes - that's the point of the local build. No account, no realm, no capacity limit. It costs you a ~5.5 GB data download and a toolchain install.
Is it legal?
The repos contain no Blizzard code or assets - the engine is written from scratch and game data is fetched to your machine at build time, not redistributed. It's still a fan project with no Blizzard affiliation.
Does it work on Windows?
Via Git Bash, yes - the build scripts need a bash shell. PowerShell and cmd are explicitly unsupported.