Duke Nukem’s longtime voice actor claims no new game or movie is in development. The Duke Nukem franchise started as a 2D side-scrolling action game for the MS-DOS in the early 1990s. The series exploded in popularity thanks to the third game, Duke Nukem 3D. The game was a fast-paced first-person shooter that allowed a previously unseen level of interaction with the environment. It had great weapons and enemies, lots of hidden areas, movie Easter eggs and Duke’s endless one-liners gave him a personality few first-person protagonists of the era had.
Duke Nukem 3D was a huge success and was ported to just about every console of the time, including the Sega Saturn, PlayStation and even the Mega Drive. The series spawned a number of console spinoffs, including Duke Nukem: Zero Hour for the N64 and Duke Nukem: Time To Kill for the PlayStation. Development quickly began on the fourth game Duke Nukem Forever, which would become notorious for its protracted 15-year development cycle. Developer 3D Realms kept changing up the graphics engine and gameplay of Forever while working on it and refused to commit to a release date. In 2009, 3D Realms was downsized and the game was seemingly canceled until Gearbox Software stepped in to complete it.
Duke Nukem Forever was released to mixed to negative reviews, and while it wasn’t terrible, it felt badly outdated in terms of both humor and gameplay. The disappointment was especially bitter to those fans who waited for the game for over a decade. Now Duke’s longtime voice actor Jon St. John has taken to Twitter to lament that no new Duke projects – be it a game or movie – seem to be happening.
No new games have been put in development since Duke Nukem Forever, and outside of a brief appearance in Ready Player One and appearing as a bonus character in the remaster of FPS Bulletstorm, the character has been quiet. While it’s not much of a surprise to hear no new games are happening, the most interesting part of John’s comment is that a movie isn’t happening either. John Cena (Bumblebee) signed on to play the character in a movie in 2018 and all signs pointed to it being actively in development.
Maybe progress on the movie has quietly stalled and that’s what John’s comment is referring to. The Duke Nukem movie was being pitched as a Deadpool-style, fourth wall breaking parody of 1980s action films. While the character still has a lot of fans, it’s tough to see how Duke’s unique brand of non-PC humor would work in today’s climate. John Cena himself expressed that concern during interviews talking about the project.
More: Exclusive: John Cena Wants To Do Duke Nukem Justice
Source: Jon St. John
