One of PC gaming's foundational titles may stay locked in the vault indefinitely. GOG has explained why Dune 2: The Building of a Dynasty — the Westwood Studios release widely credited with shaping the real-time strategy genre — can't simply be brought back to modern storefronts: its rights are split among at least four different companies.

That fragmentation is the practical definition of licensing hell. Any re-release would require every stakeholder to agree on terms, and with the game's ownership trail winding through decades of studio closures and publisher acquisitions, assembling those signatures is a far harder task than any technical preservation work.

The situation underlines a recurring problem in game preservation: influential titles often outlive the corporate structures that made them, leaving classics legally orphaned even when fans and storefronts are eager to sell them. For now, one of the most important PC games ever made remains off the market — not because nobody wants it, but because too many parties own a piece of it.