Commander Keen Lives!

Not all that long ago, we ran a historical piece on Commander Keen, tracing it's original creation, the creation of id Software 10 years ago, and had this text in it:

Will there ever been more Keen? Probably. When will it be? Who knows? There are no plans on the books for anything official at this point. id Software still owns the rights to Commander Keen, and given the direction and focus their company has now, you can bet they wouldn't be likely to do more Keen on their own.

Well, that text is now both right and wrong. It's wrong in that there has been an announcement of a new Commander Keen game made! Announced today in a press release was a new Commander Keen game for the Color Gameboy! Here's a bit from the press release:

Commander Keen marks a return to id Software's roots -- developing over-the-top, comic book-style adventure games for kids. Based on id's original Commander Keen series on the PC, Commander Keen finds precocious 8-year-old superhero Billy Blaze on an all-new quest to save the world from his alien adversaries, the Droidiccus, Shikadia and Bloogs of Fribbulus Xax.

id CEO Todd Hollenshead made a a .plan update which has basically the same information about the game.

That's about all the information there is available on it for now. Once there is more to tell about the new title, we'll cover it - but one final thing. Please don't email us about the title, Apogee/3D Realms are not involved in the creation of this game.

However, we are still selling the original 5 Keen games - if you've never played them, go check out our Keen Vorticons & Keen Galaxy - there you can see screenshots, read some about the game, and download shareware for them!

UPDATE @ 4:45PM! - An email to id CEO Todd Hollenshead confirms these facts about the game:

* It's for the Color Gameboy only.
* It's simply called "Commander Keen" (with no subtitle)
* Keen fans will recognize familiar foes, as well as getting new ones.
* It's a joint effort between David Palmer Productions and id.
* Adrian Carmack, one of the original Commander Keen team has done some new art for the game.

UPDATE #2 @ 4:50PM! - Stomped has posted a Q&A with Todd about the new Keen game announcement - check it out. While not many details are revealed, it's still a cool read.

Posted by Joe Siegler on March 1, 2001 at 4:15 PM | Permalink
News Categories: The Classic Games