Gearbox Snags Homeworld Rights

[shintakie10]

The only good that can come out of this is Homeworld 1 and 2 bein rereleased on GoG and Amazon.

The terrible part of that only good part is it'll probably be released with a bullshit price tag.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Maybe they're sick of making shooters over and over?

If they make a decent job of this then great. If they Borderlands PC port this I'll personally mail a head crab (live) to Randy Pitchford.

Port of 1 or 2?

Because Borderlands 2 is surprisingly good on PC, leagues beyond the crapbucket that was 1.

As for the news:

At least it wasn't EA, but still...

WHY?

 

[RicoADF]

Gearbox is associated with Sega. Sega owns Relic. Gearbox have a history of studio collaboration.
I say they're working together.

They better be, I wont get the game if it's made by gearbox, but if Relic are working on it and their just a logo on the box, well that's a different story. After all Aliens showed they like letting others do the work for them.

 

[MysticSlayer]

RIP Homeworld. Sorry, but you just couldn't keep up with your Big Brother, Boarderlands. Here, let me take you to the nice, large graveyard so you can pick your place right next to your other adopted siblings: Duke Nukem and Aliens. Oh, you ask who that is over in the WWII-era games. Well, that's Brothers in Arms. You see, he's been contemplating suicide ever since Gearbox abandoned him a few years ago only to let his mentally unstable twin run around in his name, but he does have hope after his twin was renamed to avoid association, but he's still probably going to kill himself before Gearbox stops doing perverted things with its favorite child, Boarderlands.

On a more serious note: It is sad to see how Gearbox automatically makes us groan in agony, especially since only a few years ago it was a well-respected company. It's going to have to pull something really good to get our trust back, and Boarderlands doesn't count. Still, I'm not holding out that much hope for Homeworld.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

Parsing the language in the quoted press release is a hilarious exercise. I hope any HD version of the Homeworlds is better than the disappointing AOE2 or Baldurs Gate re-dos.

Because Borderlands 2 is surprisingly good on PC, leagues beyond the crapbucket that was 1.

If they Borderlands PC port this I'll personally mail a head crab (live) to Randy Pitchford.

Wait a second, people had problems with the PC version of Borderlands? I hated the game, but it ran smooth as a whistle on my underpowered laptop... it was nowhere close to a memorably bad port (thinking Halo 2 or Saint's Row 2 here).

(maybe Europa Universalis IV shall quench my thirst for world domination for a while when it finally comes out)

Based on what's been shown in the forums, it looks pretty terrible. Way too deterministic. NIs have been *cough* 'streamlined' *uncough*. The interface looks too polished and shiny. ROTW has got absolutely no love so far and the game is supposed to launch in Q3 or so.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Parsing the language in the quoted press release is a hilarious exercise. I hope any HD version of the Homeworlds is better than the disappointing AOE2 or Baldurs Gate re-dos.

Because Borderlands 2 is surprisingly good on PC, leagues beyond the crapbucket that was 1.

If they Borderlands PC port this I'll personally mail a head crab (live) to Randy Pitchford.

Wait a second, people had problems with the PC version of Borderlands? I hated the game, but it ran smooth as a whistle on my underpowered laptop... it was nowhere close to a memorably bad port (thinking Halo 2 or Saint's Row 2 here).

It wasn't that bad, but still pretty terrible.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/stolen-pixels/6725-Stolen-Pixels-139-BorderLAN

It used Gamespy for multiplayer, which was complete sh!t considering the major multiplayer aspect of the game.

 

[Beryl77]

Well, I'm glad I'm not a fan of the series but I feel bad for those who are. I suppose it's too early to say things like that but I won't believe anything they say until the game is out. My only hope is that they after what happened with the Aliens game, they'll try and regain our trust by making an actually good game.
It is worrying that they've pretty much only made shooters until now but it doesn't necessarily mean that they will make a bad RTS game. Valve for example has also only made shooters (except Portal I guess but you're still in first person with something that's like a gun) and they then made DOTA 2, which couldn't be farther away from their usual games. Granted, they hired Icefrog but still, sometimes a company wants to expand and do something else. They have to start somewhere if they don't always want to make shooters.

 

[rcs619]

I really don't know what to think about this.

I suppose it depends which Gearbox we get. Are we going to get the good Gearbox that made Borderlands and a couple other good games?

Or are we going to get don't give a fuck Gearbox, who are just going to phone it in and/or outsource a known product with a cult following to help fund the development of one of their good games?

I guess, on the bright side, at least Homeworld and Homeworld 2 might finally see release on steam. That in and of itself is a net positive for gamers everywhere. I just hope they don't completely kill this franchise. All it takes is one or two bad games these days to kill entire studios, and place IP's squarely on the back-log, never to be seen again.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Hey didn't Gearbox say the same things about the Aliens franchise?

As we're discovering, "Love the franchise" and "Can't be arsed to actually try with said franchise" are not mutually exclusive.

 

[Mangod]

Well, that killed my hopes for Homeworld 3.

RTS really is a dying genre isn't it?

Well, I think the issue is that Blizzard set the mark so high, and has dominated the scene so intensely with Starcraft that most companies are afraid to even try, the last real attempt was from the "Command And Conquer" franchise and it didn't go all that well.

No love for Stardock?

On topic: At least it's going somewhere, and, more importantly, to a studio with the money to bankroll a potential continuance of the series. And if this trailer [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDhSzuWdKgU] for what is generally believed to be the spiritual successor to the series is indication, the junkyard aesthetic that Gearbox is known for might work out better than we expected...

I dunno, "Fallout meets Dune" isn't exactly what I expected from a "spiritual sequel" to Homeworld...

 

[Bertylicious]

I've got a lot of respect for Gearbox. Aliens Colonial Marines and Duke Nukem Forever were other studios' leavings that they picked up on contract.

I reckon they'll do a good a job.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Hold it, I just had a thought...

What if the guys at Gearbox are just terrible at making shooters? Maybe they're the Martin Scorsese of games. They clearly have a genre they like to do, but the one time they step outside that comfort zone that they just can't seem to master, they hit it out of the park [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/5041-Hugo].

Sure, it's wishful thinking on a scale that borders delusional, but, like the possibility of a great Homeworld sequel, a Gentleman can dream...

 

[flarty]

snip.

Yes m'lord.

As i said i wont waste my breath, as everyone refuse's to believe they had little to do with development.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Soo... anyone else here waiting for the race of Clap-Trap Robots to be leaked, causing the entire Homeworld fanbase to go crazy?

 

[CorvusFerreum]

Seriously, what is a studio with absolutely no RTS history doing with such a fairly unique RTS IP? They would just lack the experience for that to work. But perhaps I'm wrong on this.
I just have the feeling they try to turn this into a shooter. And if they do something like that I seriously will go over there and beat some sense into them with a rusty pipe.

Spoiler: sorta topical

 

[Madman Muntz]

Oh man. Hearing that these guys have got their grubby paws on such a cherished IP is a bit like finding out that Russel Brand is dating your teenage daughter.

 

[Klaflefalumpf]

I'm suprised nobody has mentioned this little gem: "with the intent of making them accessible on today's leading digital platforms."

So even if it is a strategy, we're looking at some pretty impressive dumbing down.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well I know Gearbox isn't the favorite at the moment but I would still pick them over thousands of much bigger names also the Kickstarter indie devs who wanted to acquire the IP.

Now I don't have any hope that a studio that made nothing but shooters has a clue how to make another Homeworld, but I do have hope they get better at outsourcing such projects to people who do... ya it's a long shot.