14 DAY TRIAL // Euthanasia is a very controversial subject, and we would all have a hard time letting go of our loved ones and choosing to pull the plug, but when it's time to go, it's just time to go. Duke Nukem is definitely someone whose time is up, but 3D Realm just won't put the poor guy out of his misery. Gamesauce magazine reports that 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller has announced that the DN franchise is about to be revitalized in full throttle. 2010 will see a lot of Duke Nukem releases, but the Duke will step away from the old-school gamers that actually still know who he is, and move on to the casual market.
"The next few years should see a strong resurgence in Duke," Miller said. "There are numerous other Duke games in various stages of development, several due out this year. We are definitely looking to bring Duke into casual gaming spaces, plus there are other major Duke games in production. Almost all of these [projects] are unannounced."
While it may look like an incredibly bad idea to try to push a product solely on its name to a market that has little to no contact with the title, we should remember one thing. While the number of casual gamers that have a first-hand experience with Duke is microscopic, we can't forget that the franchise has pretty much lived through word-of-mouth alone for the past decade.
The last big addition to the franchise was Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, which was released on the PC in 2002, and the game has a legal history that would make anyone facepalm. Before it, Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes came out on the PSOne in 2000 and prior to this was the 1996 Duke Nukem 3D. Even so, pretty much every gamer today knows or at least has heard the name Duke Nukem, so the title could sell even if its buyers know pretty much nothing about it.
Among the Dukes that are to come out in 2010 are two Duke Nukem titles on the iPhone, a Duke Nukem Trilogy for DS and PSP, Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, the Xbox Live Arcade version and a TBA Duke Begins game. And the guest star of the euthanasia from the opening statement, Duke Nukem Forever, is also brought back into the spotlight. "Yes, we released the internal team, but that doesn't correlate to the demise of the project," Miller added. This is how zombie apocalypses start, when we just refuse to let go of our dead.