The sad and frightful tale of Rune 2

What a wild ride

You hear a lot of strange, wacky and sad stories coming out of any industry that proposes to deal with the fallacy of hiring humans (You read me right, automatic industry is the way of the future!) and the world of game development is not in any way different. There's always crazy mind-boggling stuff happening just behind the scenes which never get revealed until years after the fact and most times leave folk like me going "Huh, I wish I knew about that at the time." There's countless weird cancellations, failed projects, unfathomable design decisions, and even the way that Ubisoft made the exact same game over and over for years on end. (Apparently that was all because of one person. Not refuting that accusation, just think it makes a convenient excuse is all. On a related note: Did that guy happen to work as the sole greenlighter for Disney movies in his spare time?) Yet recently, thanks to an article from PC Gamer, we have the tale of a story that isn't ancient history by Internet standards. It's still old, mind you, but only about a year or so. And I think that's a fascinating topic to dive into as we find out what was the deal with Rune 2, Human Head Studios and Ragnarok Game.

First off, what is Rune 2? Thank you asking, honoured reader, because I have literally no idea whatsoever. Yeah, I had to look up some reviews and stuff, so that's great. Essentially Rune 2 is the sequel to 2000's Rune, and it was a long awaited release indeed. Much as one might guess, the concept handles Nordic viking mythology where one must battle the undead, godly and whatever lies inbetween, in order to save the world, or something. So it's a third person hack and slash adventure title, with a Nordic setting. There's some crafting in the game, weapon degradation and the ability to charge into fights that you aren't even nearly prepared for. (What more could you want from your game?) Unfortunately it wasn't well received for a number of reasons, most pointedly being the fact that the gameplay gets old quickly and there's not enough to really set this game apart from any others. Oh and it looked kinda sucky for when it came out. Which was last year, by the way. Also this game launched in the wake of 2018's 'God of War', another Nordic-mythology themed action adventure title, so there's no way this game would ever look even remotely passable in comparison. (That's just the bare-faced truth of the situation.)

But why was this game not the smash hit it could have been despite the 19 years of buildup? (I mean, you could argue that no game could live upto that hype, but I never even heard of this series so the game couldn't have been too ridiculously hyped.) The typical answer in this sorts of situations is little more than 'who knows', but the game's publisher, Ragnarok Game LTD, claim to know and let off about it in that aforementioned interview. Now one must bear in mind, of course, that this is a story being told from a single perspective thusfar, and until we hear both sides a lot of this can remain conjecture, but there's still some interesting nuggets to be gleaned from all this whole tale, starting from the beginning of the game's woes; when Human Head Studios announced that they would be disbanding and thus ceasing work on the game the day after release.

Quite the shocker for the everyday fan who was looking forward to this game for so long, but even more so for the publisher, Ragnarok Game, who apparently had no clue about this until it happened. Don't feel too distraught for this sudden closure, however, because it wasn't so far into the new year that the entire staff got picked up by Bethesda in order to open as Roundhouse Studios. (Huh, that was a quick and neat turnaround for them. How fortunate.) In their wake they left behind an absolutely bewildered publisher with a game that they hadn't marketed, yet announced they would be abandoning, which certainly wasn't the most smooth transition of the game's ownership. Ragnarok's General Counsel seemed to imply that this was vindictive in his interview, saying "If you want to tank a game ... this is the playbook on how to do it." But without Roundhouse's word this is merely idle speculation, and seeing as how they've already got their lawyers out I doubt there'll be any frank illumination on things like 'motivation.' (Although, to play devil's advocate. Resorting to legal representatives certainly does paint a guilty conscious on the team.)

So at this point I'd say it would be pretty understandable for Ragnarok game to wipe their hands of the game, take the loss and try to move on with something new, but either they couldn't or wouldn't because their team struggled to do whatever they could for Rune 2. All they really needed was the source code in order to continue working under the game with someone else, but then another roadblock was thrown in their face as Human Head refused to hand it over at first. (At this point you'll likely be struck, just as I was, at how annoying it is to hear a story from just one side. Although considering the source code was still the property of Ragnarok game at the time, they'd have to have a pretty good excuse for all of this nonsense.) It was only towards the end of the year that it was handed over and the work could begin to revive this game. And at this point the effort would be going into a revival, as this game did not fare well on the review circuit. Whether it was because it was left unfinished or just because it wasn't very good in the first place, first opinions were not kind and Ragnarok would, and will, have a mother of an uphill climb in rectifying that.

What's so bizarre about all this is the fact that the way Human Head Studios is alleged to have acted doesn't make sense either for their reputation or monetary gain. On one hand the way they abandoned Ragnarok has since become widely known due to the way that the publisher had to scramble other developers in order to make the difference up, some answered the call and all now have heard some of Human Head's shenanigans. On the otherhand, as was pointed out in the interview, by leaving before the release date and running, they walked out on two pay checks totalling over $150,000. (That Bethesda sign-up bonus must be strong.) Even Rune 2's executive producer seemed bewildered by that, he himself said that they could have just kept quiet and rode out the launch, collected the money, handed off the game and still be where they are now without any of the scrutiny and a lot richer. It's just a collection of scenarios that make no sense.

As for Rune 2, well it's currently in the midst of a major overhaul from all-new developers who have the benefit of direct player feedback to work off of. Just as with other games in this age of perpetual development, Rune 2 is the kind of game looking at a total overhaul and thus perhaps there might be hope for the beleaguered title yet. From what I understand there is a lot of work to be done, NPCs to be added, Quests to be shaken-up, maybe even entire systems to be reworked, but it seems that Ragnarok have amassed a team to pull it off. Studio 369 have taken over the development of this title in wake of it's soon-to-be Steam release and that will mark the coming of a new age for the game, and I, for one, hope for the best of luck for them and their game, as it sounds like they might need it.

All in all this adds up to a headscratching tale of 'backstabbing' in the gaming industry that is somewhat unlike anything I've heard before. I mean sure, you get the endless stories about big publishers leaning their weight on the smaller Devs for whatever reason, but two small companies coming at odds with seemingly no provocation? It just comes across as wildly out of left field. Whatever happens of this situation, Roundhouse Studio are going to have this stain on their reputation for a very long time, and perhaps even worse than that, people are going to remember them for the crap they pulled when they were still Human Head. No I don't mean any of this nonsense, I mean for the creation of that artsy dumpster fire 'The Quiet Man'. That's the kind of sordid wrongdoing that no one wants on their resume...