If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Lawsuit Takes Toll, Duke Nukem On Hold For Bombshell

All out of gum... permanently?

Remember that legal battle between Rise of the Triad developer Interceptor (who recently ate 3D Realms) and Borderlands border/game license patrol Gearbox over who's allowed to make Duke Nukem games? Yeah, well it's still happening, and apparently it's not going as smoothly as Interceptor anticipated when I interviewed them. From Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction's maybe-ashes has arisen Bombshell, Interceptor's own top-down blast-'em-up starring a hard-fighting, harder-drinking main character. This one, however, is an impractically dressed lady with a robot arm... who just so happens to have recently robbed Duke Nukem's supply chest/motorcycle garage/lion throne room. Trailer and first details below.

It's a remarkably Duke-Nukem-esque opening, no? The gameplay - top-down action-RPG shooting - sounds a lot like what Mass Destruction was set to be, too. Here's the basic premise:

"From the creators of 2013’s Rise of the Triad comes Bombshell, an isometric action role-playing game for PC and PlayStation 4. Bomb Disposal Specialist turned mercenary for hire, Shelly 'Bombshell' Harrison must strong-arm her away across 4 planets in an Unreal Engine-powered galactic adventure to rescue the president from an apocalyptic alien threat. With out-of-this-world enemies, a never-before-seen arsenal of devastating weaponry and a host of genre-crossing mechanics, Bombshell is set to blow you away."

Interceptor claims Bombshell is an attempt at seizing an opportunity born of the Gearbox lawsuit - the chance to make its own IP. At this point, Mass Destruction - which Interceptor never officially announced but revealed through a web campaign - is in limbo. "It’s impossible to say what will happen in regards to our previous project," the developer wrote. "It might return, it might not."

Bombshell, however, loves kicking ass and hates bubble gum. Also, her game will be incredibly mod friendly, so you can always just mod in Duke if you really want to see him clomping around a playground that was - in all likelihood - originally built for him.

Bombshell will be out next year. What do you think? Are you a bad enough robot-armed, Skrillex-haired woman to rescue the president?

Rock Paper Shotgun is the home of PC gaming

Sign in and join us on our journey to discover strange and compelling PC games.

In this article

Bombshell

PS4, Xbox One, PC

Duke Nukem

PC

Related topics
About the Author

Nathan Grayson

Former News Writer

Nathan wrote news for RPS between 2012-2014, and continues to be the only American that's been a full-time member of staff. He's also written for a wide variety of places, including IGN, PC Gamer, VG247 and Kotaku, and now runs his own independent journalism site Aftermath.

Comments