4HEAD Studios' Beowulf Canned

In March 2006, 4HEAD Studios, developers of The Guild series, were joining forces with 3D-IO to work on this next-generation title going by the name of Beowulf. In the meanwhile, Ubisoft was also working on an installment, while Paramount Pictures has obtained the rights to Beowulf's core properties (now that both the movie and the game are out) including trademarks, Internet domains, and other assets, and so 4HEAD Studios was forced to discontinue their version of the game.

An official report confirms that as the Beowulf movie from Paramount Pictures debuts in cinemas worldwide today, along with an original video game adaptation of the movie becoming available, "work on the independently developed game of same name is suspended." Paramount Pictures has indeed obtained the rights to the project's core properties, including everything mentioned above (trademarks, Internet domains etc.), while things couldn't go worse for developer 4HEAD Studios, also having become financially unstable lately. They were recently acquired by German publishing house DTP.

"With the announcement of Ubisoft's offical game based on the movie and the conceivable competitive situation, we were seeing publishers unwilling to support our game," commented Beowulf Executive Producer Gustaf Stechmann. "We thus lacked the resources needed to drive the project's development forward. Luckily, we had the older rights to the use of the name. The buy-out deal with Paramount was therefore the logical exit strategy."

Beowulf (the video game) is said to capture the spirit and artistic beauty of the film with great fidelity, while thickening the plot even more. As such, there will be dozens of exclusive content features to the game, so rest assured, your gameplay experience will only be better once you've watched the motion picture directed by Academy Award winner Robert Zemeckis. Unexplored aspects within the film and even the classic tale will be extending the adventure through 30 years of the Beowulf story.

Here's the game's official website for more information.