Blizzard has rights to Redneck Rampage

By Oli Welsh Published 6 April, 2009

Hillbilly shooter to be revived? No.

A minor fuss has been kicked up by IncGamers' discovery that Blizzard has acquired the rights to, of all things, Redneck Rampage.

The coarse 1997 PC FPS, built on the Duke Nukem 3D engine by Xatrix and Interplay, featured hillbilly brothers in the town of Hickston aiming to save their prize pig from an alien invasion. It had two sequels (expansion packs, really), and also boasted an early example of paid downloadable content - the one-dollar "cuss pack" which added swearwords to the audio.

IncGamers speculated that this might be Blizzard's recently-revealed fifth project, currently being prototyped using the World of Warcraft engine.

However, it's also possible that the rights have simply fallen into Blizzard's lap like an inheritance from an estranged great-aunt. Interplay sold the Redneck Rampage rights to Vivendi Games, points out Big Download, which owned Blizzard before merging with Activision to become Activision Blizzard. The rights passing to an entity called Blizzard Entertainment Holdings may simply be an after-effect of the merger.

That certainly seems more likely to us, especially when you consider that Blizzard hasn't worked on anyone else's intellectual property since it made Justice League Task Force for the SNES and Mega Drive in 1995.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #1 3 years ago

    Dynamite launchers and machine gun bras FTW.

    It was cheesy, and a bit crap, but I kinda liked it back in the last century.

  • skillian #2 3 years ago

    Why the fuss?

    Blizzard holds rights to Redneck Rampage - the article implies this is controversial somehow, but doesn't explain why.

  • TurboBailey #3 3 years ago

    Was this the game where you could pee on people?


  • PearOfAnguish #4 3 years ago

    No, that was Postal.

    The peeing was useful, aside from making NPCs puke it could also be used to douse the flames on a burning body. You know you're onto a winner when your game has a keybind for 'unzip flies'.
    Edited by 1 at 06/04/09 @ 10:33

  • Monkey_Puncher #5 3 years ago

    Postal 2 also had the ability to take a cat and stick your gun butt up it's arse to use the said feline as a silencer....

    I remember Redneck Rampage, the Yanks seem to talk about it like it was quite racist. I thought it was pretty harmless myself, but hey, what do I know?

  • Uncle_Fishboy #6 3 years ago

    You could kill chickens in it. I remember it being pretty good. They should revive it but make sure it involves loads of gore and prostitutes.

  • Spindle #7 3 years ago

    I'd pay $1 for a WoW cuss pack

  • dingo75 #8 3 years ago

    You can get it from GOG (Good Old Games) cheap. :)

  • glaeken #9 3 years ago

    This is clearly a matter of them inheriting the rights as the article says. There is nothing at all about this license that they would want as far as I can see and even if they wanted to do a game using the same subject matter they really would not have needed to purchase the license for a virtually forgotten franchise.
    Edited by 1 at 06/04/09 @ 15:46

  • koopa #10 3 years ago

    I just read on another site that Interplay sold the license to Vivendi in 2004 for 300,000$, talk about money well spent...

  • Hawkins #11 3 years ago

    Classic gaming memories, the Build engine suited its humour perfectly yet provided some great atmosphere to the environments too. I think I'd actually like more Build engine games rather than the latest 3D tech. Games like Duke Nukem 3D, Blood and Shadow Warrior are just so, involving. I remember the large Shadow Warrior box next to Quake II in the shop, I had to choose one, but that choice was easily Shadow Warrior even if Quake II had the latest 3DFX lighting effects.