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Duke nukem forever jace hall6/22/2023 ![]() After a fourteen year wait (and a minor hiccup at the end of development before going gold), Take Two released Duke Nukem Forever on June 10th (internationally) and June 14th (the United States). (Gearbox's first involvement with the franchise, incidentally, involved developing Duke Begins before it was cancelled - and Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford himself was a former 3D Realms employee who knew that he would complete the game 3D Realms started just after he left them?)Īt PAX 2010, DNF made a surprise appearance with a playable demo, marking the first time any member of the general public ever managed to play a version of the game during its ridiculously long development cycle. This would normally be the end of the story - there's no development team, the game's easily the biggest joke in the gaming world, and no gamer alive expects the game to ever be released in any way, shape, or form - but we all should have remembered one simple fact: always bet on Duke.Īfter 3D Realms' development ended, Gearbox Software (the makers of Borderlands, Brothers in Arms, and Half-Life expansion packs Opposing Force and Blue Shift) picked up the scraps and finally wrapped up development on the game. A countersuit filed by 3D Realms suggests Forever was slated for a 2010 release on PC and Xbox 360 (and later announced for Play Station 3) - and another Duke Nukem-related game was in the works as well (under the working title of Duke Begins). Ī few months after the 2009 trailer premiered, Take Two pulled the plug on 3D Realms' funding and released the development team - and since the company retained the rights to the Duke Nukem name, it sued 3D Realms for damages (the lawsuit ended in a settlement). To make a long story short ( too late): Protection From Editors ended up being the game's downfall. Several from-scratch restarts did happen during 3D Realms' development of the game this Wired article details the history of the people who designed, developed, and ultimately failed the project. Gamers remained jaded after seeing this, since the game's development history never seemed to break out of alpha stages (as there would be a chance 3D Realms would restart from scratch because they weren't totally satisfied with the results). ![]() Another teaser trailer released in 2007, combined with the surprise release of Prey (3D Realms' other vaporware title), suggested Forever's development might have finally gotten somewhere.Īnother video of gameplay footage was shown in George Broussard's late-May/early-June 2009 appearance on The Jace Hall Show. To grasp the scale of DNF's development cycle, take a look at The Duke Nukem Forever list this page (last updated in 2009) lists off major events which happened between the announcement of the game and the page's last update perhaps the only thing that didn't happen between the game's announcement and its release is the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series, and even that was only missed by a few years (the Cubs won the 2016 World Series).ģD Realms released numerous trailers and teasers throughout development, including this 2001 trailer featuring footage tailored together from non-interactive cutscenes (according to a former 3D Realms developer) as a "proof of life" for the game. When readers complained against its removal, the game returned the following year to win some more awards. The game was given the Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award by Wired News for its continued delays, an award created specifically for DNF (as it was winning the Vaporware Awards too often). Little did they know at the time the other potential meaning - because when they said Forever, they weren't kidding.ĭNF was the prime example of Vaporware by way of Development Hell, and widely considered the videogame equivalent of Chinese Democracy (the sessions for the album started in 1994 and it was finally released in November 2008 actual Chinese democracy is, sadly, still in Development Hell) or the infamous The Last Dangerous Visions anthology (originally announced in 1973 Harlan Ellison still insists he intends to get the book out). Just as numerous game developers named the third installment of a popular series "3D" back in The Nineties, 3DRealms decided to extend the trope to Duke Nukem's fourth game by titling it Duke Nukem Forever ("4-Ever").
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