Double Fine Reclaims Costume Quest and Stacking

Double Fine Productions has regained the rights to Stacking and Costume Quest and will release them, along with Psychonauts, at retail next year.

Double Fine alpha dog Tim Schafer said back in May that he wanted to reclaim the rights to all the studio’s games, not just for financial reasons but to tie up the “loose ends” that trouble him so. He took a run at looting Costume Quest and Stacking from the corpse of THQ but couldn’t pull it off, so instead he turned his attention to the people who did pull it off – Nordic Games – and this time around he’s had more success.

“I am pleased that we have regained full control over Costume Quest and Stacking, following a daring and top-secret midnight raid on the Nordic Games headquarters in Vienna,” Schafer said in a statement. Terms of the deal weren’t revealed, but Nordic CEO Lars Wingefors suggested that it was in fact an amicable arrangement. “I feel compelled to point out that we were happy to transfer distribution rights for Costume Quest and Stacking back to Double Fine in an entirely non-secretive and heist-free manner,” he said.

With the two games back in Double Fine’s hands, the studio is joining with Nordic for a retail release of both, as well as the cult classic Psychonauts, planned for the first half of 2014. It will be the first non-digital release for both Costume Quest and Stacking.

Justin Bailey, business development vice president at Double Fine, said the studio will continue its efforts to bring all relevant rights back in-house, “no matter how many split-second security system hacks or painstaking tunneling operations we have to execute.”