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The General Knoxx Twitter account went offline on March 14th, after the release of the third Borderlands DLC pack. Just today, however, the account reawakened, tweeting “tap. tap. is this on? had to turn my tweetergramming machine back on. just got some new orders. (sent from the future.)” New orders, sent from the future?

Whoa. This is intriguing, isn’t it? Especially so when you take into consideration the brief glimpse of GameStop’s “Borderlands GOTY Official Strategy Guide” listing. The Game of the Year editions of video games are typically the original game paired with all DLC up to that point, as I’m sure you know. What you might not recall, however, is that Borderlands has only released the first two of its three DLC in disc-form, those titles being Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot and Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. The third DLC, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, has not yet joined the other two expansions on a disc.

Now, as the first two add-ons can be purchased on the same disc, and the third DLC hasn’t gotten such a treatment just yet, doesn’t it seem plausible that Knoxx would be paired with a fourth DLC on a second expansion pack retail disc? A few months ago, president/CEO of Take-Two declared that the company will still back Gearbox’s Borderlands with add-on content. I don’t want get my hopes up, just in case, but we loved Borderlands and would be thrilled to see another batch of content for one of my favorite games of all time.

Before it was taken off the site, the Borderlands GoTY strategy guide was listed with a release date of 9/7/10, suggesting that Borderlands would be getting a Game of the Year edition (complete with all DLC) on or around that date. I don’t know about you, but I’m stoked. Time to dust off my Siren.

THQ has been bragging about “two big announcements” headed our way. Executive vice president of Core Games Danny Bilson told VG247, “Honestly? To compete with our friends at Activision and EA? I think they’re going to have to start worrying about competing with us…Everybody wants to work here. There are two big announcements coming that will blow your mind.”

We know that THQ has new Red Faction, Darksiders, Saints Row, and UFC sequels on its plate already, plus Valhalla development Devil’s Third, all due to be released in the months up to 2012.

For Take-Two, Vice President of Corporate Communications Alan Lewis has told Gamasutra that “Every year we’re going to try to introduce at least one new IP that we hope over the long term will work well for us.” At least one new IP every year? Sign me up…as long as it’s not another Grand Theft Auto or God of War reskin.

Aparently, any reports of Duke Nukem or 3D Realms’ demise have been greatly exagerrated. 

What’s happening now is a full-blown bitch fight between 3D Realms and Take-Two, which has held publishing rights to DNF for years.  Take-Two is currently trying to sue 3D Realms for the extreme delays in the game (it started production in 1997). 

 ”[3D Realms parent company] Apogee continually delayed the completion date for the Duke Nukem Forever,” Take-Two said in the complaint. “Apogee repeatedly assured Take-Two and the video-gaming community that it was diligently working toward competing development of the PC Version of the Duke Nukem Forever.”

3D Realms has a differnt take, saying that all this time Take-Two has been paying the game’s previous developer: Infogrames/GT Interactive, and that they  haven’t seen a dime of that money but have sunk over $20Million into DNF development. 

It’s a legal mess that could take a while to sort out.  We all know what that means, right?  Even more delays.  Will DNF ever see the light of day or will it continue to be the very definition of vaporware? 

Game on!