Fenris Wolf, the developer of the Rebel Moon series, has filed suit against its former publisher GT Interactive, alleging breach of contract and interference with contractual relations. Fenris is seeking $1.7 million in damages.

Fenris Wolf was signed to do two games for GT Interactive. The first was Rebel Moon Rising, which when released was one of the first to showcase support for Intel's then-new MMX technology. The second was Rebel Moon Revolution, which was never released, and the circumstances surrounding its demise are in dispute.

Fenris Wolf successfully made eight milestones on the Rebel Moon Revolution project but the ninth, turned in on October 15th, 1998, was rejected, said Theodore Beale, co-owner of Fenris Wolf, in a phone interview with IGN. At that point, said Beale, GT Interactive had a meeting with Fenris Wolf and told them--verbally--that the game was cancelled.

But GT never sent them written confirmation of the cancellation, said Beale. Instead, GT waited two months before telling Fenris Wolf that rather than being cancelled, Fenris was in breach of contract, according to Beale.

"It is our opinion that this whole 'breach of contract issue' was manufactured, because if they cancelled the project, they had no way of recouping [their investment]," said Beale. "If they reject a milestone, we have 30 days to fix it, but GT refused to help say what needed to be fixed, or let us talk to the producer."

So Fenris re-did the ninth milestone, said Beale. GT rejected the ninth milestone again, he said. At that point, charges Beale, GT then told Fenris Wolf to make them a game for free.

It was Terry Rubin--GT's vice president of business affairs--who wanted Fenris to make a game out of their own pocket, according to Beale. Beale said Rubin told him that Fenris would make a free game or, "we will have to pursue legal remedies."

"At that point, it became extremely obvious they had been operating in bad faith the whole time," charges Beale. He feels confident Fenris Wolf will prevail.

"We don't think we'll have any problem whatsoever proving that we were cancelled, because we know what happened at that meeting," said Beale. "And we made every possible effort to compromise with those guys."

Despite the dispute, Beale isn't angry with all of GT.

"We don't have a problem with GT, we have a lot of respect with their people in developer relations," he said. He believes instead that the fault lay with GT's upper management, rather than its developer relations group.

"I know a lot of people in the company at all levels, and we believe that they [developer relations] made an honest decision to cancel the game," he said, "but that the lawyers at the company have been playing games and operating in bad faith in order to reduce the amount they would have to write off."

Beale predicted that GT would settle out of court.

"I can't see that GT is going to want to take this to court because our case is so strong," he said.

But GT Interactive tells a different story.

"In regards to questions Fenris Wolf, the charges are without merit," said John Uppendahl, GT's vice president of communications, in a prepared statement in response to the suit. "GT Interactive is committed to only publishing the finest quality games. They gave us a game which wasn't up to our quality standards. We offered them some options in terms of how to improve or work out the situation. Instead they filed the lawsuit, and we are confident that we will prevail."

Meanwhile Fenris Wolf has embarked on two new projects. Though Rebel Moon Revolution is officially dead, the Minnesota-based developer is currently working on a Traveller project, and it's also begun a Christian-themed game called Eternal Warriors, being developed by a sister company of Fenris Wolf.

--JB