Duke Nukem Forever has been in development for... well, forever. Considering a good portion of gamers who first heard about the title way back in the 90s have now grown up and started gamer families of their own, it seems clear that no matter how well the game itself does, it will always be remembered for its long, long wait.

In that period of time, a number of Duke Nukem Forever ideas and concepts were added and teased, but one new idea was recently cut from the final project.

Duke, the character, is known for a lot of things, but one that remains constant is his love for the ladies. Oozing machismo and testosterone from every part of him, his interactions with voluptuous females not only provided insight into him as a character - they also gave young pubescent gamers some of their first glimpses of...er, parts of the opposite sex.

So having our hero team-up with a character who is openly gay would definitely provide some interesting situations for Duke to battle. That was the intent behind game designer Randy Pitchford's idea of including a gay robot as a sidekick for Duke to work with.

He explained that he wanted to create a character that would give players the chance to explore how Duke would interact with someone of a different sexual orientation than him - particularly because Duke himself was so overly sexual in nature. Pitchford also hinted at a potential storyline twist that involved the discovery of the aforementioned robot sidekick having a nuclear generator in his inner workings - which would be necessary to defeat the antagonistic aliens.

Sadly, we won't get a chance to find out how these interactions or the story would turn out, as the character was cut from the final game. More frustrating was that no reason was given as to why the character was removed. However, Pitchford did say that they wanted to come back to the concept, meaning that the character could appear in a future Duke Nukem game.

What do you guys think? Why would a potentially groundbreaking character be excluded from the game?

Duke Nukem Forever is set to arrive June 14, 2011 for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

Source: Kotaku