Even as Turbine prepares to relaunch their Dungeons and Dragons Online game as a free-to-play MMO next month, the developer is now in a big legal battle with D&D game franchise holder Atari. Courthouse News has gotten access to a lawsuit filed by Turbine on August 24, claiming Atari breached its contract with Turbine over the D&D Online game.

In the lawsuit, Turbine claims that back in 2006, Atari "had failed to meet its publishing and distribution obligations under the License Agreement" to release the game in North America. Turbine claims it stepped up and handled the North American publishing and distribution of the game itself to protect its investment in the development of the game which it claims was worth $20 million. The lawsuit claims Atari insisted on keeping its publishing rights for the game in Europe.

Even after the game's release, Turbine claims Atari " . . . defaulted on millions of dollars of royalty payments then owing to Turbine under the Agreement and continued to neglect its publishing and distribution responsibilities in Europe, further hurting revenues." Even with those issues, Turbine claims it entered into another agreement with Atari to turn the game into a free-to-play MMO. Turbine claims it paid Atari "an advance of hundreds of thousands of dollars in future royalties" as part of the new agreement.

Check out more info after the jump.