Human Head Studios have been well acquainted with major issues in the past, but a month ago, the developer officially shut down, before reforming under Bethesda as Roundhouse Studios. It was a curious turn of events, because their shuttering happened just a couple days after the launch of their newest game, Rune 2.
Meanwhile, Ragnarok LLC, the publisher of Rune 2, said in a statement that it had had no knowledge that Human Head was about to shut down, and that their shuttering was as much of a surprise for them as it was for everyone else. They did, however, promise that they would continue to support Rune 2 even in the absence of Human Head.
Now, however, it looks like that’s not exactly going to plan. It seems there’s trouble between employees of the former Human Head Studios and Ragnarok LLC, with the latter filing a legal complaint against the former for withholding assets of Rune 2, which are required for the game’s continued support.
“As mentioned previously, we had no warning that our long term partner and friends in this project would abandon it during its most crucial moment, leaving our team at Ragnarok Game LLC to shoulder both the development and publishing burden of launch all on its own,” the publisher wrote in a statement.
“Since Human Head’s sudden closure, announcement, and discovering the active concealment of their acquisition, we have repeatedly requested access to the final launch build source code and RUNE II game assets,” they added. “This is so we can continue to support, update, and execute future DLC for our community.
“As part of the publishing agreement on RUNE II, Ragnarok Game LLC has paid for the development of these assets and is the rightful owner of them. After repeated refusals by Human Head to produce these assets, we’ve had no choice but to file a legal complaint in order to obtain the RUNE II game assets. We have exhausted all possible options before getting to this point. This is not the step we wanted to take, but it is necessary in order to fulfill our promises to our community.”
In their lawsuit, Ragnarok have demanded heavy damages, monetary and otherwise, including a $100 million compensation, the restitution of all money transacted by Ragnarok to Human Head, return of the game’s property, and more. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more updates as this story develops.