The 'King' Ain't Dead, Baby.

Pitchford told an audience at PAX — watched by Kotaku — that the studio picked up the Duke Nukem franchise with the intention of making more titles in the series.

"And then soon… I know that you guys figured out that, when Gearbox acquired the franchise, we didn't do it just to make sure we could all play Duke Nukem Forever, but because we wanted to make our own Duke game," he said.

"Soon, we'll talk about that, but not today."

Gearbox Software finished and shipped Duke Nukem Forever earlier in the year. The game was a big commercial success, despite its ill-fated development and poor critical reception.

Thankfully, Pitchford was honest about said critical response.

"I hope some people kind of enjoyed it," he said. "When I dug through all the stuff that [the original development studio] 3D Realms had done, I expected a trainwreck and I was actually quite pleased.

"I had a lot of fun with it. It was fun for me, and I'm really glad that we not only rescued the franchise but took the time to make sure the world could see what those guys had been doing for all of those years. And I'm also proud of the things we added to it. I think we did some things to make it a little better.

"And we're not giving up. We've updated the game. I know the load times weren't very good on the 360 and so some of the patches improve that. I don't know if you guys noticed.

"I think you're really going to like the DLC coming out that's being developed by the guys that actually made Duke Nukem Forever - the guys at Piranha, the guys at Triptych. The Triptych guys are the ex-3D Realms developers. And they're still working at our studio on the 10th floor, and they're committed. They're going to go all the way."

While Duke Nukem Forever was a disaster, we do think there's still the potential for a good game in the series. Hopefully with Gearbox at the helm, the studio can churn out something much more palettable this time around.