Another Duke Nukem game? "I hope so", says Pitchford

Gearbox's Randy Pitchford has admitted that the studio's done "some concept development" for a new Duke Nukem game, but says it's about finding the right developer to create it.

"I certainly hope so," he replied when asked if a follow-up was possible during the Q&A part of his Develop Keynote this morning.

"I didn't acquire the franchise just to let everyone suffer Duke Nukem Forever," he continued. "That was sort of the toll to pay in order to give Duke Nukem a chance to have a future."

He admits while his own like for the title was "skewed" due to his relationship with the franchise, he "got to see it from a slightly different perspective and it was marvellous to me."

"We've done some concept development," he explained about a potential sequel, "and I think the challenges are - Gearbox is very busy and I think a faster way is if a correct developer could become interested, and we could work with them. I think it's a challenging problem.

"But I'll tell you one thing -when it does happen there's no doubt the entire industry will turn its head and look. And getting attention is one of the hardest things to do, and that was probably the biggest challenge that Forever had... for ten years those guys promised us the greatest game ever made. So, it was legendary in its vapourware status."

Duke Nukem Forever was notorious for its lengthy development cycle, finally releasing in 2011, years after it was originally announced, to a slew of poor reviews.