Free for a Fee

A year-long lawsuit between the major players in the Duke Nukem game franchise appears to have reached its conclusion last week, as evidenced by a court document leak pointing to a settlement.

Duke Nukem Forever publisher Gearbox Software filed an initial lawsuit in February 2014 against 3D Realms, the DN series’ original handlers, and parent company Interceptor Entertainment. The suit alleged that Interceptor had breached the Duke Nukem IP handover contract—the one created when Duke Nukem Forever finally inched its way toward its disastrous launch—when Interceptor later announced a game called Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction.

That contract, conveniently enough, leaked last week on document site Scribd, as did Gearbox’s lawsuit allegations. Gearbox’s lawyers alleged that 3D Realms heads George Broussard and Scott Miller didn’t just infringe on the DNF handover contract, but that they’d “directly confirmed” that 3D Realms had infringed upon “Gearbox’s rights to the Duke IP.” Though none of 3D Realms’ direct statements leaked, the terms of the original contract indicated that the original Duke IP owners still had the rights to work on re-releases of prior games, along with a tentatively titled Duke Nukem: Survivor game.