Gearbox Rebooting Duke Nukem Franchise
Gearbox Software is rebooting the Duke Nukem franchise with Duke Begins once Aliens: Colonial Marines is completed.
The October 2011 edition of the Official Xbox Magazine reports that Gearbox Software plans to "reboot" the Duke Nukem franchise once Aliens: Colonial Marines is complete and out the door. The series, which began back in 1991 with the original Duke Nukem PC game developed by Apogee Software, will relaunch "with the long-discussed Duke Begins" on an unspecified date.
Believe it or not, there have been around 18 Duke Nukem-themed titles released on a whole, spanning the PC (MS-DOS), the Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, the Nintendo DS, iOS, to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC with the recent release of Duke Nukem Forever. Many fans will agree that 1996's Duke Nukem 3D was the most memorable of the bunch, and has since found its way onto more than nine platforms including Google's own Android OS (unofficially).
Gearbox Software was revealed as the developer of Duke Begins, the Duke Nukem prequel project, over two years ago. At the time, Gearbox was brought on to develop the prequel following a 2007 agreement between 3D Realms and Take-Two Interactive in which 3D Realms relinquished its rights to develop the prequel in exchange for an additional $2.5 million to dump into Duke Nukem Forever's ongoing development.
Gearbox was publicly named within Take-Two's answer to a counterclaimed filed by 3D Realms/Apogee Software during the Duke Nukem Forever dispute years ago. Take-Two said that the Duke Begins game was never terminated, and that it didn't need to consult 3D Realms/Apogee regarding to the change in its schedule. The company also denied that the halted development "materially harmed Apogee and/or will necessarily delay the commercial release of the Duke Begins game." Duke Begins was originally slated for mid-2010.
"Under the 2007 Agreement, any modification to the development schedule for the Duke Begins game, following Final Concept Approval (as defined in the 2007 Agreement), is permitted without Apogee's consent provided that both 2K Games and Gearbox (as defined in the 2007 Agreement) consent to the change," Take-Two stated.
3D Realms/Apogee Software retaliated, saying that a delayed release of Duke Begins would "delay any royalty payments...from sales of the Duke Begins game and prevent Apogee from being able to repay the [$2.5 million] advance when it becomes due in 2012."
Of course, since then, 3D Realms has shut its doors and Gearbox Software, along with a few other developers, pieced together the Frankenstein-of-a-game Duke Nukem Forever and published it back in June via Take-Two Interactive. As for when Duke Begins will launch, anything at this point is pure speculation.

PASS!
Hopefully Gearbox return to more of the Duke Nukem 3D style character, which a bit of Duke Nukem 1 & 2 thrown in. i.e. a nasty, cigar chomping, steroid abusing, beer swilling 80's action-hero parody, that puts together his own pipe bombs and hangs out in seedy strip bars - not some toned-down PG-13 rated embarrassment he turned into in the later games.
It didn't matter what happened, to whom or what he had no development or progress at all.
The mere thought of Duke fills me with disgust today, thanks to you. You can take your fake Duke franchise and bury yourselves in bankruptcy with it. The mere mention of Duke is boycotted for all eternity.
You do realize that Gearbox had nothing to do with DNF right? All they did was piece together what 3d realms had been working on and get it out the door finally. It was 80 or 85% complete when they bought it.
And this would be exactly the wrong thing to do with the Duke.
Duke Nukem isn't about any character evolution, spiritual awakening, learning moments, nor touchy-feely characterization. He's back a$$ kicking, more a$$ kicking, name calling, ohh and chewing bubblegum. He doesn't develop or change, nothing but jokes upon jokes upon jabs. There is nothing wrong with this, it's who the duke is. Notice they never give him a name other then "Duke Nukem", no history, no parents, no romantic interests (other then the twins). Just shallow dirty humor.
Sometimes I really have to wonder what everyone expects from Duke? His entire character concept is a joke on modern day hero's. He's basically the anti-hero.
This started happening in Duke Nukem 2 (Why I'm So Great, anyone?). But nothing in DN1 lead me to believe he was a hero parody... That only arose in DN3D...
Maybe I'm just old school, but a back-story doesn't hurt my perception of DN...
So umm, the first, second, third and fourth versions all had no character progression, yet somehow we want that now?
Now I like back-story as much as the next guy, I'm an avid reader and enjoy a good RPG, but Duke Nukem is the exact wrong type of game to do that with. Rebooting is fine, have him as a younger duke kicking alien a$$ with young chicks on his arm, nothing wrong with that. Just don't try to create some sort of sad mother / father story with his dog dieing type stuff.
Thing of Duke as the game version of Chuck Norris.
Duke multiplayer is the only thing that barely saved Forever, Duke deserves a decent return to modern era. Our society could use the shake-up.
The joke of DNF being the most hyped game that never got finished isn't nearly as bad as the joke of it finally getting finished and being considered one of the worst major game released ever.
The game is bad enough that they should let the franchise die. Not to mention that the world has moved on from FPS like Duke. Has anyone noticed that no one cares for Unreal or Quake either anymore?