If Duke Nukem is to make a return, he needs to redefine himself. One of the biggest problems with Duke Nukem Forever was the lack of general self awareness and parody. The game literally thought Duke was the coolest mofo around. Making him have less depth than the action heroes he ripped off. But let's get one thing straight, Duke isn't cool. And the games need to remember that.
If Duke is to return, to make the game legitimately amusing, is they need to deconstruct the character. They need to actually make him a parody of action heroes and the typical generic video game protagonist. Copying one liners from action heroes,
isn't parodying. If the point was to be a comedy character, then they have failed.
Honestly, Duke Nukem needs to break the delusion surrounding himself. Never once have I seen Duke poke fun at himself or do stuff that takes him down a peg. Everything around him is there to fulfill his own personal urges. And quite frankly it just comes off as braindead stupid. He's not a admirable character in any sense of the word. Why act like it? And Duke himself, is f#cking delusional. There's no sense of irony within him.
Duke Nukem should take a page from Big Trouble in Little China. Kurt Russel's character in that film was meant to mock action heroes of the time that Duke tries to imitate. If you watch the film, you see how he is actually pretty incompetent and the real hero is his Asian buddy who kicks way more ass than him.
I'm not saying we make the game's protagonist somehow a weakling, but Duke needs to be put in his place. The developers need to stop taking the character seriously. Because they are bound to fail every single time.
I know you're bound to say that this is a terrible idea, but wake up and smell the roses dudebro, Duke Nukem......is lame. He's not cool. He's not funny. He's a delusional un-ironic TOOL.
You can still have the gameplay mechanics as old school and nostalgia pandering as you like though, that doesn't have to change. It worked for Doom, it will wok for Duke.
But if the character doesn't wake the hell up, he's better off dead. I'll stick to Doom than suffer through another Duke Nukem Forever.