New Duke Nukem game in the works

Duke Nukem Forever left a bad taste for most gamers. Sure, it was fun and silly in a humorous way, but it just couldn’t help feeling like a game 10 years past its time.

Well aware of that, Gearbox has decided to give the iconic bubble-gum chewing badass another chance.

Speaking at the Develop conference being held this week, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said: “I did not acquire the franchise merely so we could all experience Duke Nukem Forever. That was the toll to pay to give Duke a chance.”

“That said, I liked that game. I got to see it from a slightly different perspective and it was marvelous to me.”

Pitchford went on to tease that Gearbox is already concept testing a new Duke adventure, and that it’s unlike anything that gamers have seen before, although, Gearbox itself may not actually develop it.

We’ve done some concept development [for a new game] and I think the challenges are there. Gearbox is very busy. I think the faster way is that a correct developer can become interested and we can work with them. I think it’s a challenging problem. But, I’ll tell you one thing. When it does happen, there’s no doubt that the whole industry will turn its head and look.”

“Getting attention is one of the hardest things to do. In fact, that’s probably the biggest challenge that [Duke Nukem] Forever had. For 10 years, these guys promised that it was going to be the greatest game ever right? It was legendary in its vapourware status. So it has this particular pole of attention that makes it probably three or four times more famous than Borderlands as a franchise. Not necessarily from a gamer’s [perspective] that are really clued in to what’s going on in game development in the industry, but certainly among the greater whole community.”

The last entry in the series, Duke Nukem Forever, was released in 2011 after a 15-year cycle of development hell. You can read MyGaming’s review here.