'Duke Nukem Forever' Back in Development. Seriously.

Like cats, apparently 'Duke Nukem Forever' has nine lives. The title -- which has been in a constant state of development since 1997 -- was officially terminated in May of 2009, but it took till December for anyone to notice. We all thought that the saga was finally over for our catch-phrase-stealing, woman-objectifying, swear-word-spewing alien killer. But it appears that in 2011, the most infamous unreleased game of all time can reclaim its rightful place at the top of Wired's annual vaporware list.

After the original developer, 3D Realms, closed its doors last year, Gearbox, the company behind 'Borderlands', picked up the unfinished product and decided to complete the game. Now Gearbox and publisher 2K are promising to release 'Duke Nukem Forever' either later this year or in early 2011. Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software, told the Wall Street Journal that the company was in the "polishing phase" of production. Given its history, though, you'll have to forgive us: no matter how many booths at expos you set up, we refuse to believe this product will actually ship. In fact, your author is so confident this will continue to be vaporware, he promises to purchase a copy and eat it for dinner (packaging and all) if it actually hits store shelves before the end of the year. [Ed. Note: All opinions, statements and plastic consumed by our writers do not reflect the Switched.com community as a whole. We in no way condone Terrence's promise to ingest any amount of video game materials, Duke Nukem-related or not.]

Update: Amazingly, footage actually exists (check it out after the break), and don't miss the impressions from our friends over at Joystiq.

Tags: 2k games, 2kGames, Duke Nukem, Duke Nukem Forever, DukeNukem, DukeNukemForever, gearbox, top, Vaporware, video games, VideoGames