Rune 2 Publisher Sues Former Developer, Human Head Studios

Who’s ready for some industry bull?

So here’s the skinny: on November 12, Rune 2, a Viking RPG, launched on the Epic Game Store, by Human Head Studios. On November 13th, Human Head Studios shut down, and everyone was pretty bummed, until literally later that same day when it relaunched itself as Roundhouse Studios.

Weird, right? Well hold on to your hats because it gets weirder: Rune 2 was developed by Human Head Studios but published by Ragnarok Games, who was now responsible for maintaining the game since the studio behind it, Human Head, technically shut its doors and Rune 2 launched with lots of prormised post-launch content. But the newly-formed Roundhouse Studios, allegedly, refused to hand over any of their assets or code for Rune 2, allegedly to because they didn’t want to hand them over for free.

And this matter is complicated further by the fact that the newly-formed Roundhouse Studios is technically owned by Bethesda, and apparently, Human Head never told their old partners, Ragnarok Games, that there were talks of acquisition. Which, as you may or may not know, can really screw with a publisher’s plans.

So, in a move that’s both completely logical and extremely predictable, Ragnarok Games is suing Roundhouse Studios to the tune of 10 million bucks, plus all those sweet sweet assets and code they need to keep working on Rune 2.

Right now it looks like a pretty cut-and-dry case, considering the documents provided certainly support Ragnarok’s side of the story, but then, so far we’ve only heard Ragnarok’s side: both Roundhouse and Bethesda have been stone silent since the news broke. If they’re trying to shore up their legal defenses or if they’re just trying to prepare their own side of the story we’ll eventually find out, but I very much doubt this will end quickly: assets are one thing, but ten million dollars is quite another.

I’ll keep an eye on this one.