At least one person at id Software wasn’t buying the news that 3D Realms’ fabled Duke Nukem Forever project was canned. Speaking with VideoGamer, id’s director of business Steve Nix said he initially thought the announcement of the cancellation was a joke -- as did many familiar with 3D Realms -- before expressing sadness.

“For me it was personally sad,” Nix said. I know a lot of people at the studio (id) were really surprised and saddened for sure. We had originally moved to Dallas because Apogee, who morphed into 3D Realms, was our original publisher. So id might not even be in Dallas and a lot of us wouldn’t even be working in the games industry if it wasn’t for Apogee and 3D Realms.”

“So I know for me personally,” he continued, “I thought it was a joke when I heard the other day. So definitely, extremely saddened and surprising that those guys aren’t there and we may never see the game we were all looking forward to.”

Before a branding switch in 1994, 3D Realms was known as Apogee Software, Ltd. Apogee published three of id Software’s titles: Commander Keen: Invasion of the Vorticons, Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy!, and Wolfenstein 3D.

Work on Duke Nukem Forever began in October 1948. Development on the title was stopped in May 2009 by 3D Realms due to “funding issues” and not by Thor's hammer as previously reported.