New trailer dropped. It’s super cheesy, and most importantly, a huge improvement over the debut teaser.
Where’s the duke?
He’s hanging out at Gearbox, minding his own business. I can’t see Duke coming back for a while. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that publishing Duke Nukem was “a misguided decision on my part.” Gearbox is clearly a studio Take Two trust and love to work with but bringing Duke back is a huge risk for a publisher.
I think Gearbox will sell the IP back to 3D Realms/Interceptor at some point. They have their hands full with Homeworld, Borderlands, Battleborn and I believe they still own the Brothers in Arms series. I don’t think have the bandwidth to work on a Duke sequel.
That game looks bad.
I assume a male hero would have the game named Hunk then?
About a month ago, the Gearbox vs. Inteceptor/3D Realms lawsuit was settled through mediation.
“Bombshell will never become something else,” said Interceptor Entertainment CEO Frederik Schreiber in an email exchange with Eurogamer. “We’re extremely proud of what we have accomplished with Bombshell so far, and are 110 per cent committed to the game and the universe we have created around her.”
The thing is, Duke Nukem is still a highly recognized brand name. More over, its a highly recognized shooter brand name, a safe genre for sales.
Even its brand’s well deserved infamy for having such a long development life and disappointing (to say the least) final product will contribute to discussion of any new Duke Nukem release.
So, long story short, the name has value. Put it on a competent FPS and the publisher will have at least a modest hit.
I don’t think the shooter genre is that safe. Rage bombed. Bulletstorm didn’t perform well. DNF performed okay. Granted, two of those were new IPs, but they were by established shooter developers and were promoted with huge marketing campaigns. Duke, as a series, has been pretty much dormant for 12 years (Manhattan Project - DNF). Forget the Interceptor drama around Mass Destruction and the D3D remake, Duke’s name isn’t even strong enough to carry a spin-off game to market. Duke Nukem: Critical Mass became Extraction Point: Alien Shootout and the rest of the Duke handheld trilogy was scrapped. There’s nothing but bad will there.
The CEO of Take Two didn’t have to say anything negative about Duke, especially considering 2K has an amazing relationship with franchise owner Gearbox. Gearbox is working on Battleborn and probably Borderlands 3 for them. I don’t think they have the bandwidth to make a new Duke game internally, especially if they’re still working on whatever Brothers in Arms/Furious Four turned into (unless it’s been completely dropped by Ubi). What independent developer would Gearbox partner with? If Take Two wouldn’t publish the next Duke game, who would? The only future appearance of Duke I can see in a Gearbox property would be as DLC character skin.
To me, it seems that Duke Nukem has been nothing but trouble for Gearbox. Their origins reboot, Duke Begins, was cancelled in April, 2009 by 2K. There have been lawsuits over unpaid royalties and material infringement, and DNF didn’t perform as well as they were hoping.
A boutique publisher like Devolver would be the best home for Duke.
Word up.
Fair points, all. I still view the brand as similar to getting an endorsement from Bob Barker and/or Morgan Freeman. There has to be a way to make that work, right?
OK, its not that much of a slam dunk, but from my perspective, names sell games.
I would love to see another Duke game but I just don’t see it happening.
If anyone’s interested, Duke4 member Altered Reality recently updated his amazing DNF museum, detailing every screenshot, piece of concept art and video ever released for the game. 15 years of content!
Last I checked, Rage had sold 2.3MM+ million copies. That’s not a bomb.
Raw sales numbers don’t tell the full story.
- That’s rumored to be well below ZeniMax/Bethesda’s expectations. It doesn’t matter if you sold 10 million units if the brass expected 15 million.
- 2.3 million lifetime sales is really not that much in AAA shooter terms.
- 7+ years of development.
Rage performed so poorly that the sequel was scrapped and DLC plans were downsized to single $5 add-on which released 13 months after the base game shipped. id went through a round of layoffs and transitioned from a two project studio to just focusing on Doom.
Meanwhile, the Rage team had already started planning out Rage 2, a source said. But when the first game was released to tepid critical and commercial response, executives at ZeniMax decided to start getting more involved with Id’s development process. Over the next couple of months, ZeniMax met with Id’s leadership, cancelled Rage 2, and downsized plans for Rage’s DLC, the source said.
Excuse the double post.
Gearbox are seeking an external developer for a future Duke game.
“I did not acquire the franchise merely so people could experience Duke Nukem Forever,” he explained when asked if another Duke Nukem title would be made. "That was, sort of, the toll to pay to give Duke Nukem a chance at a future.
“So yes. In fact, we’ve done some concept development. The challenge is that Gearbox is very busy. A faster way would be if the correct developer would become interested and we’d work with them.”
Triple post time!
Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of Duke 3D’s launch, 3D Realms 2.0 have launched Bombshell to even worse reviews than DNF.
Is Bombshell based on The Hurt Locker?
Wow, it sounds truly dismal.
Bombshell has gotten a 1.1 patch that supposedly fixes a bunch of stuff. The update also adds some free “retro VR” missions. I doubt any of it makes Bombshell a good game, but the creators feel the pro reviewers were just being meanies.
While some journalists weren’t so kind to us, the user reviews on Steam were Mostly Positive from the start, and we think that’s representative of the game. It’s not the best game, but we feel it’s a pretty good game, especially for the reasonable price – and it’s a game everyone at Interceptor and 3D Realms is proud of. And if you liked the game we shipped, we think you’re going to LOVE 1.1.