Duke Nukem is down, but not out

Duke Nukem has been taking quite a beating in the last week ... but it seems he may be coming back for more.

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCBP leaders cut out of Trump ad buy decision

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCBP leaders cut out of Trump ad buy decision

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

No really.

While the latest game in the controversial "Duke Nukem" franchise — "Duke Nukem Forever" — has earned a whole lot of derision from fans and critics alike as well as a dose of controversy since launching last week, Take-Two Interactive has said this isn’t the last we'll see of the swaggering, womanizing alien hunter.

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told Forbes that they have more plans for The Duke.

"We don’t really talk about it in detail but you will see future Duke IP coming from this company," he said in response to a question about spinning Take-Two games out into television or movies. "If we can take some of our intellectual property and bring it to another medium in an extraordinary high quality way, that delights consumers and represents an interesting commercial opportunity for us, we will … So far we haven't brought anything to market, but stay tuned."

"Duke Nukem" and "extraordinary high quality" don't exactly seem like two phrases that go hand-in-hand at the moment. "Duke Nukem Forever" has been roundly roasted by reviewers who have given it a rating of 50 out 100 on Metacritic.com. In-Game’s own Todd Kenreck called it weak, uninventive and "exactly like it was made 10 years ago…and not in a good way."

Meanwhile, the game found itself at the center of a public relations flap after the head of The Redner Group — the PR company responsible for promoting it — fired off a tweet threatening reviewers who gave "Duke Nukem Forever" especially mean-spirited reviews. Take-Two fired the company. (For an interesting read, check out founder Jim Redner's guest column in Wired explaining how and why things went down like they did.)

In all fairness, it’s worth noting that Strauss made the above comments during the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo, which took place before "Duke Nukem Forever" launched. So will all the bad publicity since then perhaps change Take-Two’s tune? It seems only time will tell.

Of course, The Duke has never been the kind of guy to let a little adversity or bad press get in his way. The only question is, does anyone care about this cigar-chomping, muscle-bound, out-dated protagonist any more? Right now, it's hard to see why they would.

(Thanks to Forbes for the heads up.)

For more video game news, check out:

• 'Duke Nukem's' PR agency threatens game reviewers
• Putting the fear in 'F.E.A.R. 3'
• No, we don't have the next Xbox
• These little games are getting big buzz

Winda Benedetti writes about games for msnbc.com. You can follow her tweets about games and other things right here on Twitter .