3D Realms drops a Bombshell and skirts around another lawsuit

3D Realms and Interceptor Entertainment have announced Bombshell, an isometric action game for the PlayStation 4 and PC. The Unreal Engine powered title features the eponymous Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison shooting her way through alien enemies to rescue the President of the United States. Bombshell is an entirely new property, despite the wink and nudge references to Duke Nukem in her bio. She has a robot arm and fights aliens! She has nothing to do with pig cops!

The game is a result of the ongoing legal battle between 3D Realms and Gearbox Software to determine who actually owns the Duke Nukem property. 3D Realms and Interceptor had originally teased a top-down shooter called Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction on the website alloutofgum.com.

Lawsuits take time, and are often a long, drawn-out process. Meanwhile, we wanted to be productive – our creative team couldn’t wait around for the issue to be resolved. Ultimately, we saw it as the opportunity to create our own intellectual property, and Bombshell was born. So far, it’s been a blast.

It’s impossible to say what will happen in regards to our previous project. It might return, it might not. We want to make great games without sacrificing our integrity, and Bombshell allows us to do that beautifully.

If the name sounds familiar, it’s likely because Bombshell was the blonde female sidekick in the 1998 E3 reveal trailer for Duke Nukem Forever. Ultimately, that character was cut from the game.