Classic PC strategy game Dune 2 is a ‘holy grail’ re-release but it’s

An exec at digital store GOG says classic PC strategy game Dune 2 is one of the games it wants to re-release, but it’s stuck in licensing hell.

Dune 2: Battle for Arrakis (known as Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty in North America) was a 1992 real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios.

The game is considered by many to be one of the first major, influential real-time strategy games, inspiring future games in the genre including Westwood’s own Command & Conquer titles.

A modern re-release of Dune 2 has still to happen, but according to GOG‘s senior business development and partnerships manager Marcin Paczynski, that’s mainly down to licensing issues.

In an interview with GamesRadar, Paczynski said Dune 2 was “one of the holy grails”, adding: “It’s on the top of my list, my personal one, because this is a game that I have a lot of nostalgia for. The situation is a good example of how bad it can get with the licensing situation of a game.”

Paczynski explained that because Westwood Studios was acquired by Electronic Arts in 1998, it owns the rights to the game, but it’s not as simple as getting approval from EA because it was also a licensed game, based on the movie of the book written by James Herbert.

“So currently, Electronic Arts has the game code, the assets, all of the rights to those things, and all the materials around the game,” he said. “But of course, they do not own the IP.

“The problem with the IP is that it is not directly owned by the Herbert Foundation, because the games were not based on the books – they were actually based on the movie from 1984.

“That movie was created by Universal Pictures, and the main producer for that movie was [Dino De Laurentiis]. The problem is that he also has part of that movie license with him. But he died 15 years ago.”

As such, Paczynski explained, the rights to the game are split up among numerous parties, including “whoever is the successor” to Dino D Laurentiis’s rights.

“You have Universal Pictures, Electronic Arts, and the successor for the original rightsholder of the movie IP,” he said. “On top of that, you have the Herbert Foundation that holds the rights to the IP as a whole, and on top of that, you have Legendary Pictures that owns the IP to the new movies.”

Added to this, Legendary gave “the licence to create games within the IP to Funcom“, which developed and released Dune: Awakening – Paczynski says “there is an exclusivity there” too, but he can’t tell just how it would impact on a Dune 2 re-release.

“You have all of those multi-billion-dollar companies playing a role for a game that, if we released it, might sell, I don’t know, like 50,000 units – maybe 100,000 – for $5.99 or $9.99,” he summarised. “It’s a good example of how complicated things can get.”