Gearbox enlists ex-Homeworld devs to make new Homeworld

With games like Brothers in Arms and Borderlands, developer Gearbox Software's expertise is clearly in the first-person shooter genre. That's why after acquiring the Homeworld strategy game franchise from THQ this year, Gearbox has decided that the best people to make a new Homeworld would probably be the people who made Homeworld. According to reps for Gearbox, CEO Randy Pitchford announced his studio has struck a deal with Blackbird Interactive, a Vancouver-based studio founded in 2007 by core members of Relic Entertainment, the studio that created the Homeworld strategy game franchise. The announcement was made at the game industry-facing PAX Dev last week. Gearbox will be funding further development of the new game, now to be called Homeworld: Shipbreakers. Since 2010, Blackbird had been developing the game as Hardware: Shipbreakers, a free-to-play RTS game that would be essentially the spiritual successor to the Homeworld franchise. Gearbox's acquisition of the franchise in April was led by the studio's chief creative officer Brian Martel, a professed fan of the series. We expect more details from Gearbox later this week, including what the game's business model might be, and prospects for distribution of the game.