Rune 2 - scandal for abandoning the game
On November 13, 2019, the Human Head Studios announced its closure, immediately after the release of Rune 2. The whole team subsequently formed a new studio, Roundhouse Studios, under Bethesda Softworks. The developers warned the game's publisher (Ragnarok Game) about their intention to close the company 5 days before it happened ( three business days before game release), but hid its pending acquisition by Bethesda.
Ragnarok Game claims that Human Head in the contract committed itself to post-release production support and assured that it was doing everything to prevent players from being harmed. The authors of the game refused to release the source code and game resources, despite numerous Ragnarok's Game requests. What's more, they are still working on it and have even tried to include the unapproved Rune II update in the Epic Games Store.
Faced with this situation, Ragnarok Game decided to sue the studio. In the lawsuit, their demand the return of the source code and the Rune II resources produced, and a sum of not less than $ 100 million.
The game's publisher indicates that Rune II's production was extremely slow. The initial schedule set 11 "milestones," for instance, but "because of Human Head delays, errors, and mismanagement," that was ultimately stretched to 23 milestones, all of which Ragnarok says it paid for. Moreove - Ragnarok Game claims that Human Head Studios suddenly became "uncommunicative and unavailable" a couple of weeks prior to Rune 2's launch.
How will this affect the game? It is not known ...