Zenimax Online announced a brand new Commander Keen game at Bethesda's E3 2019 press conference, but if you're expecting a return to the series' platformer roots... well, sorry. Commander Keen is a free-to-play mobile game for iOS and Android. In other words, it won't be coming to PC.

"Dadmiral Keen has been kidnapped, and only twin geniuses Billie and Billy can save him," reads the description, referring to the two playable characters. "Utilize a zany collection of gadgets that blast, bounce, and baffle your enemies in the solo Story Mode, or go helmet-to-helmet against your fellow commanders in Battle Mode. It’s time to kick some asteroid!"

It's a far cry from the classic 1990s platformers, and it's disappointing that an icon of PC gaming should skip PC entirely. The game's original creator, Tom Hall, said earlier this year that he'd love to make a new Commander Keen game, but that his letters to Zenimax had fallen on deaf ears. 

Here are the two trailers, for what it's worth:

Commander Keen in Keen Dreams released on Nintendo Switch today, which wouldn't be of much interest to us, if it weren't for that fact that it's prompted series co-creator Tom Hall to jump on reddit. Hall, who developed the game alongside John Carmack and John Romero, had some interesting things to say about efforts to develop new Keen games since the series' last instalment in 2001.

In comments left on this thread, Hall chimes in to say that he'd "love to do a new Keen" but that he doesn't have the rights. The rights lay in the hands of id Software and its parent company Zenimax. "Every letter to them has gotten a form letter response," Hall said, when asked whether he had any contacts.

Interestingly, when asked whether John Romero has "any pull with them," Hall replies that he and Brenda Romero had "tried one year" but that they also received a form letter response. 

Hall did attempt to fund a 2D platformer creation tool called Worlds of Wander back in 2013, which would have come bundled with a "spiritual successor" to Commander Keen, but it didn't reach its target. 

It's interesting to hear that efforts have been made to revive Commander Keen. And as an aside, Commander Keen in Keen Dreams is a bit of an anomaly for the series: it's not currently owned by id / Zenimax, and while it did appear on Steam several years ago under a different publisher, it's since been removed. It was a somewhat obscure stopgap between the original Keen and Commander Keen in Goodbye, Galaxy. You can buy it for $10 on the Switch, or get it for free on Android.

Here's some footage:

Great moments in PC gaming are short, bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories. 

You never know what’s going to become A Thing. Take the Dopefish. He appears in one level during the shareware game Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy, which describes him as "the second dumbest creature in the universe. His thought patterns go, 'swim swim hungry, swim swim hungry.'" And yet somehow, this chunky green wonder became something of an industry mascot in the 90s, hidden in everything from Quake to current Early Access game Dusk. Not to mention assorted callouts, including the classic bit of digital graffiti "DOPEFISH LIVES". He even appeared on Tiny Toon Adventures, as a scientific example of zero-intelligence. Which is all the more impressive/terrifying given that the top of this specific scale was a chicken drumstick.

Over the last few years though, it has to be said there's been a distinct absence of gaming's favorite piscine. When people talk of True Gamers, it's always tiresome nonsense about 'skill' or whatever. Clearly, the real definition should be people who encounter that gap-toothed smile deep in the bowels of some secret level and take a moment to nod in recognition at one of gaming's furthest-traveled fishies. The Dopefish must live again! In every game! No exceptions! We want to see the Dopefish in Silent Hill! The Dopefish in Fifa '09 The Dopefish in Dota 2!

Maybe not the Dopefish in Just Fishing though.

That would be… most unfortunate.