Gearbox picked up the rights to the storied Homeworld PC real-time strategy franchise for $1.35 million earlier this year as part of the destruction of THQ, but it was unclear what specific plans the Borderlands developer had for new games in the series (aside from an HD re-release of the original game). Now we know that Gearbox has loaned out the Homeworld name to Blackbird Interactive, which includes founding members of the Relic Entertainment team that worked on the original games.

Blackbird, which itself made an effort to bid on the Homeworld IP in the THQ auction, had been working on a free-to-play spiritual successor to the franchise called Hardware: Shipbreakers. That game will now be known as Homeworld: Shipbreakers and will feature familiar locales and units from the original game.

Gearbox will provide funding and development support for the formerly unofficial effort, according to a Polygon interview with the principals involved. "Gearbox is not in the best spot to make a sci-fi RTS successor," CEO Randy Pitchford told the site. "We've become expert at production and that's where we can help. I mean, we shipped Duke Nukem Forever—we didn't build it, but we made sure it came out. And that's a fucking miracle."

The Blackbird team working on Shipbreakers includes Relic Entertainment founders Rob Cunningham and Aaron Kambeitz, who worked as art director and lead artist, respectively, on the original Homeworld. The team of four is looking to expand following the deal, which was signed just last week.

"We wanted the project to live and thrive and grow," Blackbird Chief Creative Officer Kambeitz told Polygon. "We didn't want it to go to a publisher that would let it die. We reached out to [Gearbox] and congratulated them on [winning the IP] and that turned into a friendship."