20th century studios owns it, and even if Disney owns Fox they still are their own separate company and Disney can’t force them to simply let some other company use those rights. Still have to pay royalties to the creators, and 20th Century isn’t going to simply give Illfonic the IP without a payout of so much. Just because Disney owns that company doesn’t mean anything. Disney pretty much said they’d let the companies continue on their own.
So, still not happening unless Illfonic forks over a bunch of cash and if they use anything without permission that is owned by Ridley or 20th century again is a lawsuit and shut down of this game. That’s the point of this. May not like the legal technicalities of it, but that’s how it works.
Nothing in life is free and it’s simply business. They could give the IP to a different company and make a much larger payout. Why would they even consider Illfonic with roughly a 10k player base if that. The payout and potential financial gain would be so small it would simply cost more for the paperwork.
Simply, if a company can’t make a marginal gain then they won’t do it. Hence why PHG will not touch anything Alien or AVP for a long time if ever. It was supposed to be a strict Predator game anyways and would require an entirely new contract to add things outside of that.
