Duke Nukem Forever may not be dead yet, Trilogy still coming

3DRealms is closed. The rumors, the sly press releases from related companies, and all of the smoke ended up pointing to a rather large fire. The company posted a short goodbye message along with a picture, and that’s that. While having confirmation of the studio’s closure is one thing, we still don’t have the answer that everyone is interested in… what happens to Duke?

Take-Two retains the rights to publish the game, no matter what. If the release of Duke Nukem Forever could be described as heaven, Take-Two is Jesus: no one enters but through Him. “We have the exclusive publishing rights, not right of first refusal,” Take-Two spokesman Alan Lewis told Shacknews. “Meaning we are the only ones that have the right to publish the title.” Those rights don’t run out, but they only include Duke Nukem Forever; 3D Realms—what’s left of it— still owns the work done on the game, the character, and the rights to the past games.

So what does that mean in broad terms? Take-Two never funded the game, it just locked down the publishing rights. It could sell those rights for some quick cash to another interested party, or another Duke title could be built from the ground up and called something different to be released by another publisher. The question is: how different would it have to be before it was considered a separate project from the work done on Forever? That could be a dicey question for anyone interested in publishing a new PC or console FPS Duke Nukem title.

There are already other Duke Nukem projects in the pipeline. During the first round of closure rumors, we received a press release saying, “Deep Silver and Apogee Software are not affected by the situation at 3D Realms. Development on the Duke Nukem Trilogy is continuing as planned.” The Duke Nukem Trilogy is a series of three games, with one epic story running across them, that is being released for the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS. The first episode, Critical Mass is expected to hit this Summer.

As you can tell from the included screen shot, however, this isn’t the Duke you’re used to. I had a chance to briefly play the game at an E3 event, but Deep Silver held its party in a very loud, very dark club, and it’s hard to get a sense of a game with a PR person screaming to be heard and house music numbing your senses. But from what little I’ve played, I’m skeptical that Duke fans will see this as the fix they had been hoping for.

Sadly, interest in Forever has never been higher. There are also a number of people now looking for work, and of course they have to create demo reels. What’s going to be on those demo reels? Why, Duke Nukem Forever of course. That’s how we got to see the latest footage from the game. It looks good, with bad language, nudity, and a boss fight in a football stadium.

The original game can also be purchased via Good Old Games, guaranteed to work on newer systems and with no DRM. It’s likewise available on the Xbox Live Arcade if you’d rather get your frag on in console form. Both platforms are fine, and the title is worth revisiting if you haven’t played Duke Nukem 3D in a while. The game holds up remarkably well considering its age, and it remains a solid single and multiplayer experience.

Even after all the jokes, gamers seem to be sad that it now appears as if no one will ever have a chance to play the game… and that represents an opportunity for someone bold enough to step in, get the game finished, and then release it. Would Take-Two be interested in that happening? Would anyone be willing to give a company that has been working on a single game for over a decade any funding in this tight economy? Would any game not feel like a letdown after all this buzz? These are big questions, but what’s clear is that Duke still has value, and it seems as if he’ll always be around, challenging some brave company to come get some.