Duke Nukem Forever Totally Explained

Everything about Duke Nukem Forever totally explained

Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) is a first-person shooter video game being developed by 3D Realms, and is slated to be the next game in the Duke Nukem series. Like its predecessor, Duke Nukem 3D, Forever is being directed by George Broussard, one of the creators of the original Duke Nukem game. It stars its eponymous character, Duke Nukem. 3D Realms hasn't set a release date for the game.
The game has been subject to intense speculation. It has won several vaporware awards and the name Duke Nukem Forever has been associated with any game that's taking an extremely long amount of time to develop.

Plot

The plot of Forever has been presented through released footage and screenshots. 3D Realms released trailers at the 1998 and 2001 E3 conventions and screenshots between those years. However, as Forever has gone through extensive changes since its last trailer, the plot still remains unclear as of 2008.
   The status of several secondary characters also remains unclear. In the November 1997 issue of PC Gamer, Scott Miller stated that Doctor Proton, Duke's original nemesis, would return. It is unknown if Doctor Proton is still in the game. In the 1998 trailer, Duke was paired up with a female sidekick named Bombshell, but she didn't appear in the trailer released in 2001.
   The 2001 trailer shows an alien invasion in Las Vegas. It features Duke fighting with several weapons. Duke fights the aliens in many areas: a mine, some rural areas, the streets of Las Vegas, on water, and indoor areas. As of 2003, the 3D Realms website states that "the screenshots and videos that were there have been removed as they no longer represent the game's current look and feel." and the intention of releasing the game no later than mid-1998. The game engine is important as it provides the underlying technologies and simplifies development.
   Original prototype work on the game had begun as early as January. In August and September, the first screenshots of Forever were released in PC Gamer. In its November issue, Scott Miller restated that the intended release date was 1998. However, 3D Realms didn't get the Quake II engine code until November 1997, and the earlier screenshots were simply mock-ups with the Quake engine that the team had made in their spare time. 3D Realms unveiled the first video footage of Forever using the Quake II engine at the 1998 E3 conference.

Change to Unreal engine

In June 1998, the 3D Realms team switched to Epic's Unreal Engine. Fans were concerned because switching game engines requires more development time and further delays the release of the game. Broussard said that the transition from the Quake to the Unreal engine would take from "a month to 6 weeks" and that the game wouldn't be significantly delayed. He also reassured gamers that the items unveiled in the May 1998 E3 demo would carry over on the Epic engine. He also said that Forever would be released in 1999. In December, 3D Realms released a Christmas card that suggested that Forever would be released in 2000.
   In early December 2000, publisher Gathering of Developers announced that they'd acquired the publishing rights for Forever. Shortly afterwards, 3D Realms released another Christmas card that suggested that Forever would be released in 2001.
   At the May 2001 E3, 3D Realms released a second video that showed a couple of minutes of in-game footage
   In 2002, after hiring several new programmers, the team completely rewrote the renderer and other game engine modules, beginning work on a new generation of game content. Broussard estimated that around 95% of the previous level design work was scrapped in the process. He also later stated that they were never less than two years away from shipping with the UT based version of the game. The engine, which now contains parts of an early version of Unreal Engine 2.0 (the team branched off from the engine in 2001) supports such features as pixel shading, normal mapping and high dynamic range based lighting.
   Broussard has stated several times that the only parts of the Unreal engine that are still part of their code base are UnrealScript, the networking code, and the UnrealEd. Everything else (except the current physics engine) has been written from scratch by 3D Realms. The principal technical reason given by Broussard for the extensive delays was the unstable tech base. Once it was stabilized, 3D Realms expanded their team considerably, from 22 to 31 members.

Conflict with Take-Two

On May 20, 2003, Jeffrey Lapin, then CEO of Take Two, told reporters that the game wouldn't be out by the end of 2003. In response, George Broussard commented on Shacknews, saying that "Take Two needs to STFU ." Later in the year, on December 18 2003, Jeffrey Lapin said that 3D Realms had told him that Duke Nukem Forever was expected to be finished by the end of 2004, or the beginning of 2005. Many gaming news sites mailed George Broussard, asking him to confirm or deny the rumor. After receiving no answer from him, they published the rumor as fact, ending the article with "Attempts to contact 3D Realms for comment were unsuccessful as of press time." Later that day, George Broussard explicitly denied the rumor and explained that he wasn't able to answer the emails because he was working elsewhere in the building.

Physics engine switch

On September 14, 2004, 3D Realms announced that they'd replaced the Karma physics engine with one designed by Meqon. Several sites have speculated that Forever will be using the latest generation of this technology, which was designed for next-gen consoles.

2005-2007

Rumors in April 2005 suggested that the game would appear at 2005 E3, along with 3D Realms' previously canceled Prey. While Prey did make an appearance, the rumors of Forever's appearance turned out to be false.
   In February 2006, Broussard gave an interview and updated the status on Forever. He reported that everything was together and in full production, and that the guns, creatures, and everything else had been finished. Broussard said that the development team was tweaking and polishing the game and putting it all together. In April, Broussard demonstrated samples of the game, including an early level, a vehicle sequence, and a few test rooms.
   In June, in a filing with the SEC, Take-Two revealed that they'd renegotiated the deal and will receive $4.25 million instead of $6 million upon the release of the game. The filing also revealed that Take-Two was offering a $US 500,000 bonus if Forever was commercially released by December 31, 2006. However, Broussard denied the rumors that Forever would be released, saying that 3D Realms never cared for or asked for the bonus. He stated that he'd "never ship a game early."
   On August 30, 2006, Shacknews reported that several key employees had left 3D Realms. They speculated that the departures would lead to further delays for Forever. However, 3D Realms strongly denied these claims, stating that the employees had left over a number of months and that the game was still moving ahead.
   On January 25, 2007 and May 22, 2007, George Broussard posted two Gamasutra job ads with small (200x125 pixel) screenshots of Duke Nukem holding two guns and an enemy (mutated pig). Broussard later confirmed that these were real in-game screenshots.

2007-present

In July 2007, Game Informer released two new screenshots, one of which appears to be a previously unseen shot of an in-game level, the other being the front shot of Duke seen in the first 2007 screen, but from a slightly different angle.
   A new video was released on December 19, 2007 claimed to be made by employees of 3D Realms during their spare time to show at the annual Christmas party. The announcement had also confirmed earlier speculation that composer Jeremy Soule (Total Annihilation,, Secret of Evermore, Prey, Guild Wars) had joined the team. George Broussard made clear that the video was a teaser, rather than a trailer. He noted that all other media related to Duke Nukem Forever was no longer relevant, including the trailer released in 2001, and that a brand-new trailer would be released in the coming months. Broussard also confirmed that the video was shot real-time from the game, with the exception of some introduction and ending shots. As of Thursday February 7 2008, an official teaser trailer is available for download.
   3D Realms has made it clear there's no set release date for the game and any shops claiming to have "insider" information are lying.
   Miller "confirmed" a 2008 release date in an email sent to the Dallas Business Journal on February 6 2008, although this was reportedly "off the record", and as such, no official release date has yet been given to the public. Broussard later denounced the statement.

Reception

Wired News has awarded Duke Nukem Forever its Vaporware Awards several times. It placed second in June of 2000 and topped the list in 2001 and 2002. Wired created the Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award exclusively for Forever and awarded it in 2003. George Broussard accepted the award, simply stating, "We're undeniably late and we know it." In 2004, the game wasn't on Wired's list, saying that they'd given Forever the Lifetime Achievement Award to get it off of the list. However, upon readers' demands, Wired changed its mind, and Forever won first place in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Forever has drawn a number of jokes related to its development timeline. The video gaming media and public have substituted several names in place of Forever, calling it "ForNever", "Forever Delayed", "Forever Waiting", "Forever Not Played," "Never", "Whenever", "If Ever", "(In Development) Forever", "(Is Taking) Forever" and "Neverever".

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