Ben-DutkaOkay, so we know that Duke Nukem Forever is dead and buried (unless another developer or publisher wants to snap it up), and Apogee Software is still planning to release the trilogy of handheld Duke titles on the PSP. But of course, it doesn't end there.
Take-Two Interactive/2K Games and Apogee are currently battling over the DNF fallout; Take-Two is attempting to retrieve the loans they paid to Apogee for the production of DNF, but Apogee has a deal for them… According to GamePolitics , the publisher and developer have entered into an agreement that lets 2K design and produce a new title: Duke Begins . The document makes it clear that this is not the same project as DNF, despite the coincidence that all development on the game was halted by 2K back in April. Apparently, Duke Begins was set to be released in "mid-2010," but Apogee says 2K canceled the project "without their consent." Now, they claim the publisher is trying to get the developer to sell the rights to the Duke franchise for less than they're worth. We're not 100% clear on all the legal intricacies of this litigation tug-of-war, but we are certainly interested in whatever this "Duke Begins" project is…if it's not DNF, is it for another platform? We already know about the PSP titles so it can't be set for that, although as DNF may never have come to the PS3, maybe "Begins" was a PS3 exclusive…? Yeah, probably too much to hope for.
But the saga definitely continues, and that's enough for now. If we can't have Duke on our TVs, we can at least have him in the news, right?
