May 7^th, 2009 (7:25pm) - (Oh, Duke Nukem, you didn’t deserve this.)

After years of delay, and more than a decade-long’s worth of drawn-out hype over it’s proposed upcoming sequel to its former hit classic, Duke Nukem 3D developer, 3D Realms is rumored to be out of gum and out of options.

Shacknews.com reported early Thursday that a reliable source states financial issues, likely from the superfluously long development of Duke Nukem Forver, are to blame. Apogee Software and Deep Silver claim they are unaffected by the announcement, and that Duke Nukem Trilogy is still on track.

But without 3D what will become of Duke’s future "in 3-D"?

That is unknown at this point. What is known is that Take-Two retains the publishing rights to Forever, but bluntly denies the responsibility to fund it:

"We can confirm that our relationship with 3D Realms for Duke Nukem Forever was a publishing arrangement, which did not include ongoing funds for development of the title." -- Take-Two VP of communications Alan Lewis.

3D Realms was started in 1987 by Scott Miller and George Broussard, and best known for its acclaimed Duke Nukem series on PC; Duke Nukem 3D being its most popular. The official shut-down is expected as early as week’s end.

Stay tuned to GamersMark for further developments.

[-- UPDATE! -- As a late correction, it seems rumors of 3D Realms’ closure were only half true. It appears the Duke Nukem Forever development team has indeed been let go due to funding problems, but that 3D Realms will live on and indeed maintains rights to the Duke Nukem franchise. However Take Two still reatains publishing rights to DNF.]