Has Relic acquired the Homeworld IP?

With the identity of Homeworld’s buyer still shrouded in mystery, the original game’s designer has told VideoGamer.com that he would be “disappointed” if the rights to the series were snapped up by anyone other than Relic.

Speaking last week about the prospect of acquiring the Homeworld IP from THQ, Relic’s Quinn Duffy – who also served as designer on the original Homeworld – told VideoGamer.com that he would “love [the series] to come home to its spiritual home back here at Relic”.

“I think I would be disappointed if it was anywhere else,” he added. “It just feels like it belongs to Relic.”

Media company TeamPixel, LLC launched a Kickstarter campaign earlier in the year to raise funds to acquire the rights to the Homeworld IP. However, it announced last week that it had been unsuccessful in its bid to purchase the license, with the rights being sold to an unnamed “new owner”.

Crusader Kings publisher Paradox Interactive also revealed that it made a bid for the IP, but finished third.

SEGA has yet to confirm whether either itself or Relic – which was acquired by the publisher during THQ’s assets sale – made a bid for the Homeworld IP.

SEGA provided VideoGamer.com with a “no comment” when contacted about the acquisition this morning.

The original Homeworld released on PC in 1999, and was followed by an expansion 12 months later, and a sequel in 2003. Relic later developed the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes series.

But even if the studio were to acquire the rights to the IP, Duffy believes that there’s only “maybe two of us that worked on the original Homeworld left at Relic,” with other members of the original team now working at Blackbird Interactive.

“It might be something they’re interested in, who knows?” he says. “But it needs to live somewhere where people would be willing to do it justice if they were going to make it.”

And he admits that he doesn’t know how a new Homeworld game would look over a decade on, either.

“I don’t know what Homeworld would look like now,” Duffy continues. “That game came out, what, 12 years ago? What would it be at this point? It’s hard to say.

“It was one of my first shipped titles and I think as a game it wasn’t very deep: the RTS races are almost identical. But it’s stunningly gorgeous and it’s an experience, and I think if you were to do that, you’d need to understand that it’s more of an experience than a game, and then how do you build something out of that.”

SEGA acquired Relic and the Company of Heroes IP during THQ’s assets sale at the turn of the year. Additional THQ studios and IPs were sold to other third-parties, including Deep Silver, which picked up Saints Row, Metro: Last Light and Volition, and Ubisoft, which acquired South Park: The Stick of Truth.

Relic’s next title Company of Heroes 2 launches on June 25.

Source: VideoGamer.com Interview