Four years later the Kingdoms of Amalur court case comes to an end

Four years later and it looks like whole 38 Studios/Curt Schilling/Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning legal battle with Rhode Island state is coming to a close.

Schilling and three other defendants from 38 Studios have agreed to pay a $2.5m settlement. They aren't personally liable for the money - their old insurer Starr Indemnity and Liability Co. will foot the bill, reports the Boston Globe via Polygon.

If the court agrees to the settlement, Rhode Island will have recuperated, via settlements, a total of $45m from 38 Studios. That doesn't quite cover the $75m loan Rhode Island granted 38 Studios in 2010. That loan came from tax payers' money and it was around the loan that the whole case revolved. After this settlement only litigation against 38 Studios' financial advisor remains.

38 Studios was cleared of any criminal charges recently.

38 Studios was the production company set up by Curt Schilling, a former American baseball star. With acquired developer Big Huge Games it delivered Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning in 2012, published by EA. And it was a good game, safe, but slick.

Here's what Oli said in his Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning review: "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning does all the boring, difficult parts of RPG game design very well, and marries them to exceptionally slick combat and a towering stack of stuff to do. This well-oiled machine keeps you motoring through all the sludgy fantasy cliché and through a sluggish first act. Then - just as the world opens out and the story picks up traction - that motor really starts to sing. That's when a solid, workmanlike game becomes one that's virtually impossible to put down."

Kingdoms of Amalur is not one of the Xbox 360 games compatible with Xbox One, but it is available for £20 on Steam, which seems a bit pricey to me. Perhaps wait for a sale.

Kingdoms of Amalur did sell. It shifted 1.22m copies in 90 days, which is strong for a new IP. The problem was that so much had been spent developing the game ($63m or higher) those sales weren't high enough. That's when the problems started.

38 Studios' had overarching plans for an online fantasy world a lot like World of Warcraft's, codenamed Project Copernicus, and plans for a Kingdoms of Amalur 2.

But as 38 Studios struggled to make loan repayments and pay staff wages, the whole dream came crashing down.