Time and time again, we ask ourselves an age-old question: what killed the dinosaurs? Our fascination with Earth’s previous rulers never ceases to amaze. But today, gamers are asking a more mundane, though just as messy question: who truly created Studio Wildcard’s open world survival-shooter, Ark: Survival Evolved?

Since last December, Ark had been embroiled in a lawsuit between Wildcard and Trendy Entertainment (the creators of the Dungeon Defenders series), both of whom contested ownership of the popular dinosaur shooter. A court filing made last Friday marked the end of the lawsuit. The result? Trendy Entertainment and Insight Ventures (Trendy’s owner) allegedly acquired $40 million in damages from former Chief Technology Officer at Trendy, Jeremy Stieglitz.

If all this sounds very confusing… it’s because it is. It would behoove us to start from the beginning of the lawsuit and the events that lead up to it to fully understand just what could have lead to Ark’s – and Wildcard’s – extinction.

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Ark: Survival Evolved launched its early access period last June on both PC and Xbox One. The game, which combines survival elements with first-person combat and dinosaurs (and dinosaur riding!) proved to be a hit, with an 84,000 all-time player peak. The Ark sailed smoothly until Trendy Entertainment accused its former CTO, Jeremy Stieglitz, of having breached a contract between the two upon transferring to Wildcard. The contract: the two companies would not compete with one another, and Wildcard would agree not to “solicit employees” (poach them) from Trendy.

Moreover, Trendy accused Stieglitz of having secretly conspired with Wildcard co-founder (and his spouse), Susan Stieglitz, to make Ark, which had allegedly been under wraps as early as 2014. Wildcard was founded in October 2014, which is when Stieglitz had left Trendy.

Around the middle of last year, Trendy threatened to file a lawsuit against Wildcard, thus setting off a series of messy legal battles that continued until earlier this week. Trendy and Insight charged Stieglitz with having essentially taken Insight’s money and spending it on an external project; Stieglitz’s laywers claimed Trendy’s accusations were salacious.

Stieglitz’s relationship with the rest of Trendy has been rather contentious in the past. Whether or not this influenced Trendy’s attack is best left to interpretation. If you’re interested in learning more about the events that lead up to the fallout, Kotaku wrote an excellent article last month that details Stieglitz’s history with Trendy, which you can read here.

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In any case, the stakes requested by Insight were nothing short of astronomical. The company accused Stieglitz of having stored millions of dollars in offshore accounts, and that he owed Insight “$26 million alone.” On April 12, Susan Stieglitz tweeted that Trendy wanted an astounding $600 million.

Lol they want 600 million

— Susan Claire (@SusanCStieglitz) April 12, 2016

This, of course, is not to mention the possibility of Ark being taken off Steam and the XBL Store entirely had the company gone under.

Earlier today, though, Wildcard posted on Ark’s official Subreddit that they had given Insight a final amount of $40 million. The post was deleted shortly afterward.

It’s difficult to tell what’s in the cards for Wildcard, or Ark, for that matter. But two facts seem certain: Insight and Trendy may be resting just a little easier at night after having (somewhat) resolved their woes, and Ark won’t be going the way of the dinosaurs any time soon.

Unless some meteoric development in the Trendy-Wildcard saga emerges, of course.