Bees have intervened to amicably settle the legal dispute over rights to the Star Control series of sci-fi explore-o-RPGs. After finding common ground in a love of bees, Star Control creators Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III have hashed out a deal with Star Control: Origins developers Stardock that all parties say is nice and good and fine. Stardock will get to name their games Star Control but not claim vintage designs, Ford and Reiche will not get to name their games Star Control but will get to say they created the series, and they’ll all split royalties from sales of the old games. And now they’ll stop lawfighting.

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Stardock’s Star Control: Origins has been pulled from sale on Steam and GOG following a copyright claim from the lead developers of the first two games in the spacefaring RPG series. Stardock did file a preliminary injunction to preemptively block any such attempts from Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III, but a judge denied that. By releasing Star Control: Origins despite knowing that the copyright was contested, the judge ruled last week, “the harm [Stardock] complains of is indeed of its own making.” Stardock claim they’ll need to lay off some staff now that income’s halted.

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Without genre-blending space adventure Star Control, we probably wouldn’t have the likes of Mass Effect, so today’s launch of a modern reboot – Star Control: Origins – seems reason to cheer. Offering silly branching dialogues, arcade space combat and planetside exploration mini-games, it looks like a fine time, full of odd aliens to meet, planets to explore, and spaceships to shoot at.

It’s just a pity that my enthusiasm is dulled by a still-ongoing legal battle between Star Control: Origins developers Stardock and original Star Control 1 and 2 leads Fred Ford and Paul Reiche over who owns the rights to the series and its universe. Still, if that’s not an issue, more power to you – Star Control: Origins is out now. Below, a charmingly daft launch trailer.

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Good news, potential graphics card buyers. Now that the world’s supply of affordable GPUs have been ripped back from the cold, dead hands of the global crypto-mining community, AMD have announced they’re going to start bundling in some free games with new graphics card purchases again – specifically, upcoming Greek stab’em up Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, mythological co-op shooter Strange Brigade, and space action RPG Star Control: Origins.

It’s not just one game you get either. Nope, you get all three> when you buy an AMD Radeon RX 570, an AMD Radeon RX 580 (our current recommendation for playing games at 1440p in our best graphics card rankings) or one of AMD’s shiny 4K-pushing Vega cards.

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Fred Ford and Paul Reiche, the lead developers of the first two Star Control games from the 90s, have launched a crowdfunding campaign to help pay legal fees in their battle with Stardock. Both sides are claiming to hold varying rights to the sci-fi RPG-o-adventure series, and scrapping to secure rights the other believes they hold. Ford and Reiche are currently making Ghosts Of The Precursors, a sequel (but not in name) to their Star Control 2, while Stardock are making alternate-universe prequel Star Control: Origins. Ford and Reiche say their defence fees will cost an estimated $2,000,000 ( 1.5m) and would very much like the public’s help to pay them. (more…)

Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III, the lead developers of the original Star Control games, have sent their lawyers into the fight Stardock started over the series and filed a counterclaim of their own. Stardock are currently making a reboot-o-prequel to the sci-fi RPG-o-adventure, named Star Control: Origins, after buying Star Control assets from Atari in 2013 and want to make quite clear who’s in charge of the series and rights. Ford and Reiche, who are currently making a Star Control sequel in all but name, contest that Atari couldn’t have sold certain rights to Stardock because they had reverted to Ford and Reiche long before then. (more…)

Up until this month, it was easy to get excited about the future of Star Control. After 20 years of false starts, we were getting not one but two successors to the classic space romp. The original designers, Fred Ford and Paul Reiche, were working on a direct sequel to Star Control 2, Ghosts of the Precursors, while Stardock was working on a prequel, Star Control: Origins, set in a different universe. Now the two games are lamentably part of an increasingly public dispute between Ford, Reiche and Stardock CEO Brad Wardell. It s getting ugly.

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