There are ways to make gamers love your company; and there are ways to make them despise it – mostly by being called Bobby Kotick. Gearbox, the company behind smash hit borderlands and the resurrected Duke Nukem forever are pretty good at the former, and it’s easy to see why.
A rather ambitious fan-made Duke Nukem 3D remake utilising the Unreal Engine has been given the all clear by Gearbox, current holders of the IP, who’ve even granted the developers a non-commercial licence to distribute their project.
This means that the team can plaster the game – called Duke Nukem: Next-Gen- with official Duke branding, making for an authentic experience should they ever finish and release their remake.
Even better? According to project leader Frederik "Fresch" Schreiber, the team will even be getting official support from Gearbox with regards to development. Fan-made projects like this do have a tendency to fall apart; but the teams says they’ll have a multiplayer demo available soon. I hope that should this game ever get completed, Gearbox would help push for it to be available on XBLA and PSN.
You can read more – and even pitch in to help if you have the necessary skills over at the Gearbox forums. Kudos, Gearbox.
Last Updated: October 14, 2010
codemonkey
October 14, 2010 at 13:39
Big steaming pot of awesome!!!!
Milesh Bhana
October 14, 2010 at 14:42
I still don’t see why Sierra made such a big fuss over the Kings Quest thing, seeing that they’re not using the IP.
Gearbox are using the IP and happily let the fans do their thing.
Then again, Sierra are owned by Activision, who are currently the Satan of the gaming world.
Luna
October 14, 2010 at 20:30
Pretty nifty! Amazingly nifty, really. I knew there was a reason I loved Gearbox, aside from the Borderlands obsession… ^_~