The feud over, Duke Nukem finally has a permanent home

3D Realms’ and Gearbox ongoing fight over the Duke Nukem license is finally put to rest.

If you haven’t been paying attention, there’s been a bit of a custody battle going on over Duke Nukem. Originally owned by 3D Realms, Duke departed via a purchase deal to the Borderlands company, Gearbox. And that was fine and dandy until 3D Realms and Interceptor Entertainment announced a new Duke game.

As you might imagine, announcing a new game based on an IP that you no longer own might create a little problem between Interceptor and the new owners of the franchise (excepting older releases). And yes, there was a lawsuit.

Turns out, Interceptor immediately had 3D Realms stop development on the new game as soon as Gearbox “reached out” to them to inquire what was going on. But that didn’t stop a suit from proceeding, as there’s no love lost between Gearbox and developer 3D Realms.

You can’t really blame Gearbox here though, as Realms actually sued them back after Duke Nukem Forever was released, claiming unpaid royalties from sales of the long-awaited and subsequently critically drubbed game. Which makes you wonder- were there sales of Duke Nukem Forever?

In any event, all the bad blood has coagulated at this point and been wiped away with a squeegee, as the suit has been dropped in light of a settlement agreement. The actual terms of this agreement are being kept private by all parties, but the important part is that Gearbox is now the sole owner of the Duke franchise. Now we all have to sit tight and see what they do with it.

Although Gearbox hasn’t officially announced anything, they’ve hinted that Duke was never bought to be a one and done affair, and there are more adventures on the way for the throwback hero. As for Interceptor and 3D Realms, they have something very tangible en route to gamers with Bombshell.

The all-new action game centers on the title female hero, takes place in the third-person, and looks pretty promising. No release date on that one just yet, but it should be hitting PCs relatively soon (next year or so), as it’s been in development for a while now.

Source: MCV