UPDATA: Deep Silver and Apogee have released a statement that, despite whatever troubles are brewing over at 3D Realms, the DS and PSP versions of the Duke’s past adventures are still on their way.

“Deep Silver and Apogee Software are not affected by the situation at 3D Realms. Development on the Duke Nukem Trilogy is continuing as planned,” the statement reads.

Still no word from 3D Realms or Take-Two, however. I don’t think it’ll be too long before something gets announced officially though.

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Distressing rumors have come floating in from Shacknews today: according to the site, reliable sources close to 3D Realms claim that the studio behind the long-delayed title, Duke Nukem Forever, has been shut down.

Supposedly, the closure is due to “funding issues” – not surprising for a company that has kept a game in development for 12+ years – and both 3D Realms and Apogee Software employees have already been laid off. Radio silence has so far been the only reply from those inside 3D Realms and DNF’s publisher, Take-Two has yet to comment as well.

What can you say about this? If true, it’s hard to make a joke about so many people being out of work, even when the title in question that they were working on became its own running joke; the only other project spoken of with the same sort of “We’ll believe it when we see it” snark was Guns N’ Roses’ infamous Chinese Democracy, which eventually hit store shelves last fall after 13 years in production as well. If this turns out to be the case, it looks like Axl gets the last laugh on Duke after all.