Just as I was writing today’s news digest, this came through the wire (thanks Shellfishguy on Quarter to Three for making me aware of it). According to this post on the Gearbox website, they’ve acquired the IP to Homeworld. According to the short post:
Gearbox Software has prevailed as the highest bidder in the acquisition of the Homeworld franchise from THQ. Brian Martel, Gearbox Software’s Chief Creative Officer, has great love and respect for Relic’s brilliant, fun and innovative game and personally spearheaded the acquisition.
Brian intends as first priority to direct Gearbox’s interest to preserve and assemble the purest form of the original acclaimed and beloved games, Homeworld and Homeworld 2, with the intent of making them accessible on today’s leading digital platforms.
I’m not sure how to react to this. What do y’all think?
Wasn’t there already something on Kickstarter trying to relaunch the Homeworld series? I presume that means it’s dead…
Yeah, those guys will refund the backers and start their own IP als a Homeworld-like clone. That being said, I don’t think Gearbox having the rights to HW is necessarily a very bad thing. There is no guarantee that they will screw this up as badly as DNF or Aliens: Colonial Marines. And making the HW games available on, say, Steam is definitely a good thing, although I hope for GOG.com, as they put much more love into making a legacy game playable on modern systems.
Well, let’s wait and see. And hope for the best.
Completely different genre than the games they’ve made in the past. I have no idea if they have anyone on staff that has experience making this kind of game. It’s not the same as making Unreal engine shooters. I LOVE Borderlands 1/2, but DNF and A:CM were both terrible.
Let me guess .. Gearbox will use the Homeworld IP to con some publisher into providing funding that will be secretly used to fun Borderlands 3. They will then farm out development of Homeworld to some 3rd rate developer which will be universally panned by players and reviewers.
I certainly hope not.
Either could be better or worse compared to those IPs bought by Nordic Games though.
Nordic did buy a ton of ’em, didn’t they? And we’ll have to see what Gearbox plans with the IP.