Wasteland Kings, Super Crate Box developer Vlambeer’s upcoming action roguelike game for PC, PlayStation 4, PS Vita, and Mac, is no longer Wasteland Kings.
Announced at the Eurogamer Expo this weekend, the game is now called Nuclear Throne.
“We will be renaming Wasteland Kings for a variety of reasons that will soon be in the press everywhere,” Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail said during a game developer session. “Wasteland Kings, in the future, will be known as Nuclear Throne.”
Watch the Eurogamer session below. The name change is confirmed around 32:10.
Thanks, NeoGAF.
Update: In a post on the Vlambeer blog, Ismail explained Wasteland 2 to be the reason for the Nuclear Throne name change.
“After announcing the game for PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita during Sony’s press conference at gamescom, we were contacted by a Dutch employee of InXile Entertainment, the studio behind 1988 title Wasteland and the recent Kickstarter for Wasteland 2,” Ismail said. “They explained that InXile CEO Brian Fargo and some of the team were worried about possible brand confusion and argued that Wasteland Kings could be misinterpreted as a title in the Wasteland franchise.
“We realize that both games are set in a similar setting, that the names are similar and that InXile obviously felt the need to reach out. Although we aren’t sure Wasteland Kings and Wasteland are confusing enough for this to be an issue, both us and InXile really don’t want to spend development time on arguing over trivialities.”
Ismail concluded, “Most of all, we appreciate that the first contact between us was by a normal employee, and not a lawyer. There was no extravagant Cease & Desist-letter, nor a threatening letter in an envelope labelled ‘URGENT’. The e-mail we received was short, amicable and to-the-point. It was followed up by a quick conversation on Skype, in which we established that it would be the right thing for us to change the name.”