MHServerEmu is a volunteer-driven research project aimed at reverse engineering the underlying technology developed by Gazillion Entertainment to run game servers for the now defunct online ARPG Marvel Heroes.

The main result of our work is a server emulator, the source code for which is available on GitHub under the AGPLv3 license. You can find the instructions for downloading and setting it up here.

The server emulator can be used to play Marvel Heroes offline or over LAN using legally obtained copies of the game client. There are also publicly available community servers that use MHServerEmu to enable online play. We do not host any such servers ourselves, and we are not directly affiliated with individual public community servers. There is no “official” community server.

Feel free to join our Discord if you would like to discuss the server emulator and its development.

MHServerEmu is not monetized, and we do not accept donations in any way, shape, or form. If you have paid money for this, you have been scammed.

FAQ

Did you remake the game? Are you using Unreal Engine 5?

We did not remake the game. We restored it to the state it was in before it was shut down.

Marvel Heroes was built using a client-server architecture, which means the game consists of an Unreal Engine 3 based client application that runs on your PC and a remote server that the client connects to. We are using the original client as is without any modifications, and we are reverse engineering the server software using the information available in the client.

This is possible due to some of the choices made during the development of the game. Even though the “netcode” is server-authoritative, meaning the server runs the game and has the final say in all cases, the client features significant prediction capabilities to keep the gameplay smooth. For this purpose it shares a lot of the code, as well as all game data, with the server. So copies of all the original stat values, drop rates, formulas, and so on, as well as a lot of the logic that processes them, are in the client.

All of this is completely custom technology developed by Gazillion, and Unreal Engine acts as a sort of graphical wrapper. Porting the client to another engine, such as Unreal Engine 5, is completely outside the scope of this project.

Is the game fully playable?

All systems and content that were in the game when it was shut down in 2017 have been restored.

What versions of the game do you plan to support?

So far we have restored the final build of version 1.52, released in September 2017. This is the build that was live when the game was shut down.

We plan on going back and implementing support for other versions as well. The prime candidates for this in the order or priority are:

  • 1.48 - the final pre-BUE version from late 2016.

  • 1.10 - the “vanilla” version from mid 2013, around the time the game was first launched.

  • 1.53 - the final version that was publicly available on the test center in late 2017.

BUE refers to the Biggest Update Ever, also known as Marvel Heroes 2016 2.0, released in January 2017. This update contained many changes that were initially made with the upcoming console port in mind, and it ended up being controversial among players.

There are no timeframes for when support for other version of the game client will be implemented.

As of right now, we do not have any plans to support console versions of the game due to technical challenges with acquiring, running, and debugging the console client. This may eventually change as work on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One emulation on PC progresses.

Is there anything I can do to help?

We are currently not looking for help with the development of the server emulator. There are other ways you can potentially contribute though.

We are looking for some of the rarer versions of the game client that are not on Steam:

  • Early beta versions released in late 2012-early 2013:

    • 1.5.0.361, 1.5.0.408, 1.5.0.417, 1.5.0.422, 1.7.0.258, 1.7.0.597, 1.8.0.31, 1.8.0.52, 1.8.0.149, 1.8.0.232, 1.8.0.361, 1.8.0.394, 1.8.0.514, 1.8.0.537, 1.8.0.595, 1.9.0.286, 1.9.0.318, 1.9.0.422, 1.9.0.496, 1.9.0.531.

  • Mac open beta from June-July 2014 (most likely 1.23.0.x or 1.24.0.x).

  • Any “whitelist” versions that you had to accept an NDA to access. Some of these are called Marvel Heroes (Demo).

Please keep in mind that we are looking for complete copies of all client files, and not installers or leftover files.

We are also looking for decrypted dumps (fPKG) of the PS4 client. In order to dump the game client you need to have it installed on a jailbroken PS4 or PS5.

These versions of the game client are not critical for the server development process, but they will allow us to more thoroughly preserve Marvel Heroes.

If you believe you can help us with this, feel free to contact us on Discord.