By way of a post on the company’s official forums, community manager Joe Siegler has confirmed that 3DRealms is closing its doors. Formed back in 1987 and also known under the guise of Apogee Software, sources say that the studio is expected to close as early as next week.

The reason? All signs point to a lack of funding. Judging from the tone of Siegler’s post, this closure was far from expected:

When I recorded that, I didn’t know.

It’s not a marketing thing. It’s true. I have nothing further to say at this time.

Whether this news signals the end of the road for Duke Nukem Forever is unknown at this point. According to a statement obtained by ShackNews, Take-Two still retains publishing rights to the title under the agreement it made with 3DRealms. There were no obligations to provide funding under the terms of said contract.

Looks like that means if 3DRealms is indeed going defunct, work on the title could always be passed onto to another developer. It’d be a shame to see the progress made thus far go entirely to waste.

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