Grave Gamer News & Views — gearbox software

Gearbox Boss Says Duke Nukem Will Return (Eventually)

Duke Nukem Forever was a fucking travesty. After 14 years in development – in which time it was announced and unannounced for a plethora of different consoles – the once 3D Realms owned IP finally saw new life in 2011 once Texan dev and industry darling Gearbox Software acquired the franchise.

But too many cooks cluttering the kitchen, dated code, and archaic design turned the high-profile Duke into the butt of a joke no one found remotely funny (or very playable). It wasn’t a stretch to figure that Duke was dead after that very loud misfire.

Gearbox’s CEO and face man, Randy Pitchford, says that’s not all to the story, though. “I did not acquire the franchise merely so we could all experience Duke Nukem Forever,” said Pitchford to a Develop Conference crowd today. “That was the toll to pay to give Duke a chance.”

Randy went on to reveal that Gearbox has actually tooled around with concepts for what’s to be a brand new Duke Nukem entry. Stickler is, Gearbox is too busy to dive into development themselves. Between the upcoming Battleborn, a promising merger of FPS and MOBA of all things, and sparking the fire that’s to become the third Borderlands, revisiting Mr. Nukem would be spreading the studio thin.

“I think the faster way is that a correct developer can become interested and we can work with them,” said Pitchford. “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.“

He’s talking about a similar working relationship to the one that brought Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel to life, in which 2K Australia took over devin’ while Gearbox oversaw the project (unfortunately, the Down Under developer was shuttered a few months back, putting them out of the running for new Duke).

Randy seems excited to give Duke a proper revitalization, even acknowledging DNF was far from that, but, uh, should Duke come back? Duke Nukem is a byproduct of an era where action heroes gnawed on cigars while pumping seemingly endless rounds of machine-gun fire into their one-dimensional foes before spitting out a quip so hammy you could hear it ‘oink.’

As the years go by,  Duke’s name holds less and less weight, and the virtual disaster that was Duke Nukem Forever all but killed any shred of fondness fans had for the franchise. Not saying there can’t be a great new Duke Nukem game. Right minds, right time kinda thing. But, goddamn, how likely is that to happen again?

Gearbox Reveals Their Next Multiplayer Scramble: Battleborn

Debuting in this month’s Game Informer, the creators of a little co-op diddy called Borderlands are following up their genre mash-up with another FPS mix drink.

Battleborncombines the trigger-happy thrills of a first-person shooter with the quick leveling, team-heavy gameplay found in most popular MOBA’s. This arena, however, is at the...

“I’m not going to fuck around with you like Valve does with Half-Life 3. Look. We know we want it and we know it should exist, but we don’t know what it is yet.

But we are doing things in Borderlands that we’ll announce soon, that are good, and that I think people will be really excited about if you love the franchise.”

– Randy Pitchford, CEO and President of Gearbox Software, updating Polygon on the status of a Borderlands 3.

Oh, Randy. I salute you. You can check out Mr. Pitchford’s full interview with Polygon here. The basic jist is that, no, Gearbox isn’t working on a Borderlands sequel right now because no single great, extravagant, kickass idea has emerged just yet.

Slap that frown off your face, though. With projects like Tales From the Borderlands in gestation, you’ll be back on Pandora faster than you can say “Get ready for bad touch!”

1/12/13
Welcome back to the Roundup, where we take a look back at the week in gaming, reflect on the gaming happenings, and balance our finances in order to put gaming above all else, minimizing insignificant expenses like food and rent (let the landlord keep banging at the door – it’s not like he has a key or whatever).

This week in games, cyberpunk became cool again, Pokemon invaded a new dimension on its quest to conquer ours, the Kinect became even more gimmicky, and Massachusetts declares war on our virtual wars.  All this and half past an inch more after the jump.