The 3DO Revival That Died in a Week

The 2026 attempt to revive the 3DO console lasted less than a week — and the reason is a textbook case of what happens when a company buys a name without the underlying assets.

Empire Interactive, a long-dormant British publisher, announced in late June 2026 that it had acquired "the trademark and select intellectual property rights of The 3DO Company" and planned to relaunch the console and remaster classic games . By July 2, the project was dead. The company walked away rather than fight a multi-front legal battle it wasn't equipped to win.

What Empire Interactive Actually Bought

In mid-2026, Işık Şekercigil, CEO and owner of Empire Interactive, purchased the trademark rights and legal entity of The 3DO Company . He then posted on LinkedIn about reviving the 3DO as an independent game company, possibly with new hardware .

But the purchase was far narrower than the announcement suggested. Empire Interactive acquired the corporate name trademark for "The 3DO Company" — and little else .

The Core IP Was Held by Others

The assets actually needed to build a console or publish games were scattered across multiple unrelated companies:

• Throwback Entertainment, a Canadian company, was reported to hold the core game IP rights for the 3DO library . When Time Extension contacted Throwback for comment, the company made clear it had no plans to sell .
• Piko Interactive had separately owned the 3DO logo mark since around 2020 and was responsible for licensing aftermarket games for the system .
• Other game franchises from 3DO's 2003 bankruptcy auction were dispersed among Ubisoft (Might and Magic), Take-Two (Army Men), Namco (Street Racing Syndicate), Microsoft (High Heat Baseball), and others .

Multiple Parties Claimed Rights

Once Empire Interactive made its announcement, multiple rights holders came forward asserting ownership over various pieces of the 3DO ecosystem — games, console technology, and trademarks — creating what the company itself described as a legal minefield .

Former Limited Run Games CEO Josh Fairhurst also publicly expressed skepticism about whether Empire's claim to the 3DO name was legitimate at all, adding uncertainty to an already tangled situation .

Empire Walked Away Rather Than Fight

On July 2, 2026, Empire Interactive announced it was "withdrawing from the 3DO project." The company's stated reason: "multiple parties claim rights to the games and the console," and it did not want to become entangled in "prolonged legal disputes" whose costs would likely exceed any potential profit from the revival .

The announcement came via an email to Time Extension and a post on LinkedIn . Empire said it would instead focus on developing its own next-generation projects .

Why This Matters Beyond 3DO

The collapse of the 3DO revival is a cautionary tale for anyone buying dormant game brands. A trademark for a company name is not the same as owning the game IP, the logo, or the hardware designs. When a brand's assets have been fractured across multiple owners over decades — as happened with 3DO after its 2003 bankruptcy auction — buying one piece of the puzzle doesn't give you the right to use the rest.

In this case, Empire Interactive bought a name. It didn't buy the ability to build a console, republish a single game, or even legally use the 3DO logo. And when the real owners of those assets pushed back, the revival had nowhere to go.