Homeworld Officially Adopted by Gearbox, Re-Release on the Horizon
After THQ dissolved and had its assets auctioned off, the fate of many game franchises was in question. In a recently released Gearbox blog, the future of one IP has been confirmed. Homeworld will live on!
Brian Burleson, the producer in charge of the Homeworld project, outlines Gearbox’s plans for the Homeworld series. At this point their plans are to:
Preserve and assemble the purest possible form of the Homeworld and Homeworld 2 for digital release.
Create HD versions of Homeworld and Homeworld 2 that can take advantage of modern technological advances that weren’t available at the time of their original releases.
Burleson discusses the challenges the team has faced, and they already seem many. The content they received from THQ was incomplete and they had to reach out to past Homeworld devs to help piece together the sourcecode. Even with the abundant help, Gearbox was still missing multiple tools, including the rendering tools used to create Homeworld 2. Luckily, Gearbox was able to reach out to the Homeworld modding community and utilize the numerous fan-made tools available to help make up for some lost time.
As an avid fan, I am really excited by the prospect of a Homeworld 2 HD remake. I have incredibly fond memories of sitting down with my older brother and playing the multiplayer against a couple of AI opponents. My brother was always better than me since I could never get a good grasp on the concept of a “z-axis.” Luckily, the ship AI was smart enough to take care of most of that for me, but it kept me from greatness.
Re-releasing the original games onto modern distribution systems (fingers crossed for Steam) will make it significantly easier to play the originals. I have long since lost my original discs, and it would be nice to be able to get another copy. On top of that, a remake of Homeworld would bring arguably the best Space Strategy Game to modern computers and make it far more accessible to both new players who are experiencing this wonderful franchise for the first time, or those of us who want to return to the Mothership and conquer known space.