More Lawsuit Drama

Court documents filed by Take-Two indicate that Duke Begins is/was being developed by Gearbox.  Apparently they've halted development on Duke Begins, but it hasn't been cancelled.  3D Realms wanted Duke Begins to be out by mid-2010 so they would be able to repay an advance of $2.5 million they received from Take-Two for the development of DNF.  The advance is due to be paid back by 2012.

3D Realms claims that it continues to work on the development of DNF without a contractual deadline for delivering the game to Take-Two; however, Take-Two writes that the "law implies a reasonable deadline for the completion of contractual performance where no deadline is explicitly set forth in the contract."

Visit Shacknews for uninteresting details on the drama in addition to court document scans.

I think it's interesting to note that 3D Realms (namely co-founder/CEO Scott Miller) has continued to release DNF screenshots on Duke's Facebook (see news below) amongst the turmoil noted above.  As far as we know, there is no team working on the development of the game, and George Broussard is away in Vegas playing poker and posting about his gambling on Twitter.

Also, there appears to be a contradiction with new DNF screenshot releases and George's claim that their legal disputes prevent them from being able to even talk about the game.  Earler court documents even indicated that part of the lawsuit against 3D Realms dealt with Take-Two's unease with 3D Realms' tendency to leak unofficial game media.