Duke Nukem Lawsuit Settled June 12, 2010

The lawsuit between Take 2 Interactive and 3D Realms has been settled and dismissed.  No company can now sue the other under the same grounds in a court of law.

What does this mean?  Well it could mean something and it could mean nothing.  3D Realms right now is pretty much two guys re-releasing ten year old games on new platforms and making no new product.  Now that the lawsuit is resolved, someone should be able to continue work on Duke Nukem Forever, although I would hardly call what 3D Realms has done on it over the past 11 years work.

The details of the settlement are unknown, and likely won’t be known unless something is announced in public, there are usually Non-Disclosure Agreements about this sort of thing.  In theory, development of Duke Nukem Forever should be able to continue now, but without money 3D Realms has no way to pay developers, which is why this whole problem started in the first place.

The only way this will work out for gamers (and this is just pure conjecture) would be if Take 2 offered the money needed to fund the rest of the game but put a time limit on the money, probably giving 3D Realms a year to polish up the game and release it.

If the terms are anything otherwise (give or take whenever the time limit finishes, could be a year, could be two) the game will likely never see the light of day.