id Software co-founder says “love to do” a brand new Commander Keen

The previous few years have seen a few of legendary FPS studio id Software’s greatest franchises return. With the return to type of each Doom and Wolfenstein, and even Quake hovering within the background, it’s a reasonably good time for the studio’s outdated guard, however there’s one huge identify lacking – Commander Keen.

That’s not for lack of making an attempt although. According to id co-founder Tom Hall, who opened the studio alongside John Romero and John and Adrian Carmack in 1987. In a Reddit thread final night time discussing the Nintendo Switch launch of Commander Keen: Keen Dreams on Nintendo Switch, the developer stated that he would “love to do a new Keen,” however doesn’t have the rights to the sequence.

Hall goes on to say that he’s tried in useless to relaunch the sequence. An try at a religious successor, Secret Spaceship Club, floundered on Kickstarter again in 2013, and Hall says that he’s by no means had any luck talking to Zenimax – “every letter to them has gotten a form letter response.”

For these of you who, like me, weren’t round for the earliest iterations within the sequence (the primary Commander Keen game in 1990), it follows the adventures of eight-year-old Billy Blaze, who donned his brother’s soccer helmet with the intention to turn into the eponymous commander.

Pew-pew: Check out our record of the best FPS games on PC

Zenimax’s radio silence is a disgrace given the return to type of a few of id’s different sequence, however it will appear that it’s not simply Hall that Zenimax is blowing off – he additionally says that John and Brenda Romero contacted the corporate with the very same outcomes.

That hasn’t stopped followers of the sequence from expressing some artistic workarounds, nonetheless. One of them advised a straightforward swap to create the adventures of Kommander Ceen. That may not be sufficient to maintain the legal professionals away for lengthy, nevertheless it’s heartwarming to know that almost 30 years later, the game’s neighborhood continues to be searching for it.