Digital Trends

A reincarnation of Apogee Software will bring three new Duke Nukem titles to portable systems starting next summer.

Although 3D Realms turned the once-venerable Duke Nukem franchise into the laughing stock of the gaming work by perennially promising a game than never arrives, the resurrected brand Apogee took a lighter approach to introducing the newest attempt at a Duke game. The company released a trailer on Wednesday that seems to give gamers a wink at its current state of development.

Over the course of four minutes, aggressive music plays, logos flash, and old Duke Nukem art slides across the screen over and over, but game play is nowhere to be seen. The only real information proffered by the video: the three titles in the trilogy will be Chain Reaction, Proving Grounds, and Critical Mass.

Apogee helped fill in a few more blanks in its press release for the games. All three are headed to the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, with the first, Critical Mass, to arrive next summer. The games will slightly recast Nukem by sketching in a past as a WWII hero, and players will actually be able control Duke during that period in Proving Grounds.

As for Apogee itself, a name that’s been missing from gaming since the 90’s, it’s been resurrected as a division of the Deep Silver label, which itself belongs to Koch Media, a British company. The company picked up the Duke Nukem name under license from 3D Realms, which is, by all accounts, still cracking on Duke Nukem Forever.