With Atari holding the rights to publish/distribute the game, I don't believe WB can contest that even though they have the rights to the IP. But, I'm definitely not a rights lawyer and I'm not going to try and play one on the internet, so anything similar to what you theorize could possibly halt Night Dive's effort.

One person to ask (and who might willingly provide information) would be Night Dive's CEO, Stephen Kick (@pripyatbeast on Twitter).

Just curious, did anyone try DUSK? I followed the guy who made the game and it seems to be pretty good.

David was posting here on GOG during the time before the game entered Early Access on Steam.

As for trying it - can't say that I have. Eventually though - I'm a tightwad and the moment it hits a price I want to buy it at, I'll go for it but for right now I'm in no rush.

I hope this will be a free update for those that already own One-Unit Whole Blood on GOG/Steam seeing how System Shock: Enhanced Edition got its source port update for free when they were using a previous engine for that game.

If I understood everything correctly, Atari has the rights only to publish old Blood releases. Rights to any new Blood releases belong to WB.

So it should be a free update of the existing Blood release. Neither Arari nor Nightdive simply have no legal rights to sell this remaster as a new game.

So it boils down to what can be considered "limited provisions for updating the game", and if WB is willing to treat BloodEX as an update or as a new game. I still have my doubts whether reverse engineering and rewriting everything in new engine is considered updating. But unfortunately I think that it also means that any sort of graphics updates like texture filtering and better lighting are out of question.

For now I'm waiting for the GOG version. It has been a good year for old school shooters with DUSK an Project Warlock. I just wish these games actually looked a bit better because I am not a fan of retro graphics in general.
From what I've heard (hint) there is one special little reason why Blood fans may like DUSK ;-).

I bought the original game on GOG and would be willing to pay for the remaster.

We have got a BloodGDX...

What we need more?? :)

If we're gonna be silly about it - we have Blood, why would we need BloodGDX?

Apply the same silliness to Doom, etc. Why would we need dozens upon dozens of source ports when we have the games right there.

In more serious terms - when it comes to Blood, having options beyond BloodGDX - especially considering how unlikely it is that the community ever gets the source code - is certainly welcome.

I have meaned if we have a good source port like BGDX which is working perfectly with original Blood, I do not need any remaster, that is all I want to say, you do not need making a philospohy about that, thanks.

We don't have a source port at all (and I am not inviting debate on it). What we have currently is one functional approximation alongside a total conversion that doesn't quite get things the same and a bunch of mostly abandoned and unfinished conversions.

Having the options of finished products is not a detriment. No one is forcing Makarov off BloodGDX nor are they saying anyone using it has to use Kaiser's EX release (whenever it does happen).

Also, while I will acknowledge my response had a much worse tone than I originally realized, most of it was intended to be humorous (regardless of whether anyone laughs or not). Making your point clearer in your own response would've forced me to eliminate the useless joking in my own response since I can respect the decision that you're happy with what you have.

While a free update would be awesome, it's not like Night Dive Studios is in it for the charity. They are working on a significant update to get the game to work natively on a current system. Think of it like an update from VHS to DVD to Blue-Ray. It's the same film, just re-encoded/packaged for the newer devices. I know that's not 100% accurate, but if they charge $20 for a re-release I'd happily pay it just to show support for the franchise and perhaps get WB and Atari to work something out.

The jokes in the game are very politically incorrect by today's standards.
I won't be surprised if snowflakes try to have this remastered game censored.
Overall, I liked the game when I first played it.

If it works without DOSbox, at high frame rates, with high resolution support with PROPER UI scaling, has no stupid built-in texture filters that make everything look blurry, fix the most prominent bugs (especially the difficulty damage scaling bug when loading a game) and it is reasonably priced, then I see no reason not to buy it (given that it comes out on GOG).