Duke Nukem Forever

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Duke Nukem Forever
Developer(s)	3D Realms
Publisher(s)	Take Two Interactive
Engine	Modified Unreal Engine 2.5.
Release date(s)	"When it's done."[1]
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Platform(s)	Windows
Input	Keyboard, Mouse

Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) is a yet-to-be-released first-person shooter video game being developed by 3D Realms, and is the next game in the popular Duke Nukem series. It is notorious for its protracted development, which has been ongoing since 1997. Many consider the game to be a classic example of vaporware, often being referred to as the Chinese Democracy of video games.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Development timeline 2.1 Change to Unreal engine 2.2 Conflict with Take-Two 2.3 Physics engine switch 2.4 2005 and beyond 3 Reception 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Plot

Although two E3 trailers and a series of screenshots have been released, the game's plot remains only vaguely defined, as most of the publicity is now out of date and development has changed direction many times since its release. In the November 1997 issue of PC Gamer, Scott Miller stated that Doctor Proton, Duke's original nemesis, would return. Originally, it was planned that Duke would be teamed with a female sidekick named Bombshell, who appeared in a 1998 trailer for the game. However, she did not appear in a later trailer released in 2001, and it has yet to be confirmed if she still plays a role in the final release of the game.

The second trailer, released in 2001, shows an alien invasion in Las Vegas. It features Duke fighting with several weapons, most notably a rifle, his Desert Eagle and the shrinking gun. Duke fights the aliens in many areas: a mine, some rural areas, the streets of Las Vegas, on water, indoor areas, etc.

Unlike Duke Nukem 3D, this game will feature civilians other than strippers, such as the citizens of Las Vegas, EDF (Earth Defense Force), which will probably play an important role in the game, as there are both friendly and hostile EDF soldiers. The hostile ones are probably infected with a new enemy, a parasite worm, which probably turns humans hostile.

An old man, probably working in the Nevada mines, which was also present in the previous trailer, is seen at the end of the video, inside a strip club. He might also play an important role in the game, probably helping Duke against the aliens.

This trailer showed how interactive the game's world is, with Half-Life 2-like breakable objects and vehicles.

Weirdly, Duke doesn't say a word the whole trailer, unlike in the previous trailer. It is rumoured that voice actor Jon St. John won't reprise his role as Duke's voice.

It featured:

• Duke fighting an alien while in a moving car, driven by a fellow soldier.
• Duke riding several vehicles (a boat, a spaceship). The character also slides a motorbike under a tanker.
• Duke interacting with several characters, most notably some spooked civilians, in a scene where Duke and they hide in a restaurant whilst the entrance door is smashed by aliens from the streets. Duke also speaks with a general regarding the President of The United States being kidnapped by the aliens.

It is noteworthy that on the 3D Realms DNF site, "the screenshots and videos that were here have been removed as they no longer represent the game's current look and feel".This means that there has probably been a significant change within the game's plot.

[edit] Development timeline

Duke Nukem Forever was officially announced on April 27, 1997^[2] along with the purchase of a license to use the Quake II engine.^[3] 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 stated that the intended release date was 1998. However, 3D Realms didn't actually get the Quake II engine code until December of that year, and the earlier screenshots were simply mock-ups with the Quake engine, that the team had made in their spare time.^[4]

At the May 1998 E3, 3D Realms released the first video footage of Forever.

[edit] Change to Unreal engine

In June 1998, the 3D Realms team switched to Epic's Unreal Engine.^[5] All previous work except for textures had to be started over from scratch. (The textures were replaced later, however.)^{[citation needed]} George Broussard predicted the transition will only take approximately six weeks, but later said that it took much longer than expected.^{[citation needed]}

In 1999, 3D Realms announced that they had upgraded to the newer version of the Unreal Engine. In December, they released a second batch of screenshots, which showcased the Unreal Engine version of the game for the first time.^[6] Later in December, 3D Realms released a Christmas card that suggested that DNF would be released in 2000.^[7] However, in 2000, they released another Christmas card, suggesting DNF would be released in 2001.^[8]

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 had been scrapped. The engine, which now contains parts of an early version of Unreal Engine 2.0^[9] (the team broke off from the engine in 2001), is for the first time supposedly complete,^[10] and supports such features as pixel shading, normal mapping and high dynamic range based lighting.

George 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 Meqon, which is the 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 this problem seemed to have been solved, 3DR expanded their team considerably, from 22 to 31 members, marking what many hope to be the final stage of the development cycle.

[edit] Conflict with Take-Two

On May 20, 2003, Jeffrey Lapin, then CEO of Take Two, told reporters that the game would not be out by the end of 2003.^[11] In response, George Broussard commented on Shacknews that "Take Two needs to STFU imo" — Internet parlance for "Take Two needs to shut the fuck up, in my opinion."^[12]

Later in the year, December 18, 2003, an article from GameSpot revealed that Jeffrey Lapin had a recent conversation with 3D Realms. Discussing a revised released date with the developers, he was told that Duke Nukem Forever was expected to be finished by the end of 2004, or the beginning of 2005.^[13] 3D Realms' CEO became infuriated with Jeffrey Lapin for releasing confidential information regarding Duke Nukem Forever, and had neither denied nor confirmed the information that Jeffrey Lapin revealed.

On September 9, 2004, GameSpot published a conversation between Take Two CEO Rich Roedel and UBS analyst Mike Wallace which alleged that Duke Nukem Forever had switched to the Doom 3 engine.^[14] Many gaming news sites mailed George Broussard to have him confirm or deny the rumor, but 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 was not able to answer the emails only because he was working elsewhere in the building.^[14] As of May 2005, it is believed that Rich Roedel had mistaken DNF for Prey, which Human Head (supervised by 3D Realms) developed with the Doom 3 engine.

[edit] Physics engine switch

On September 14, 2004, 3D Realms announced that they had replaced the Karma physics engine with one designed by Swedish developer Meqon. Several sites have also speculated that DNF will be using the latest generation of this technology, designed for next-gen consoles.^[15]

[edit] 2005 and beyond

Rumors in April 2005 suggested that the game would appear at 2005 E3, along with 3D Realms' previously cancelled Prey. While Prey did make an appearance, the rumors of DNF's appearance turned out to be false.^[16]

In October 2005, Broussard reported that the game size was now at 9.6 gigabytes, although the size will be optimized somewhat for release.^[17]

In February 2006, Broussard gave an interview and updated the status on Forever. He reported that everything was together and in full production; 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.^[18] In April, Broussard demonstrated samples of the game, including an early level, a vehicle sequence, and a few test rooms.^[19]

In June, in a filing with the SEC, Take-Two revealed that they had renegotiated the deal and will receive $4.25 million instead of $6 million upon the release of the game.^[20] The filing also revealed that Take-Two was offering a $US 500,000 bonus if Forever was commercially released by December 31, 2006.^[21] However, Broussard denied the rumors that DNF would be released, saying that 3D Realms never cared for or asked for the bonus. He stated that he would "never ship a game early...for 500K."^[22]

On August 30, 2006, shacknews.com reported that several key employees had left 3D Realms. They further speculated that this did not bode well for the future of Duke Nukem Forever. They noted that "while the game's team has reached a size of about 24-28 developers, recently it has been closer to 18, meaning these current departures may actually comprise a majority of the team."^[23] However, Broussard commented that the physics and animation systems a couple of the departures were involved in were "virtually finished" and in a maintenance and polishing stage.^[24]

[edit] Reception

Wired News has awarded Duke Nukem Forever its Vaporware Awards several times. It placed in second in 2000^[25] and topped the list in 2001^[26] and 2002.^[27] Wired News 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."^[28] It did not make the list in 2004, but Leander Kahney noted that they had received a lot of nominations for the game.^[29] By popular demand, it topped the list again in 2005.^[30]

Forever has drawn a number of jokes related to its development timeline. Gamers have substituted several names in place of Forever, calling it ForNever, Never, Whenever,^[25] If Ever,^[27] Taking Forever, and Neverever.^[29] In the April 24, 2006 edition of FoxTrot, Jason Fox compiles a list of reasons why to get a PC. One of the reasons was to "play Duke Nukem Forever someday."^[31] Gaming website 1UP.com lists its scheduled release date as 5 March 2999.^[32]

When the GameSpy editors compiled a list of the "Top 25 Dumbest Moments in Gaming History" in June, 2003, Duke Nukem Forever placed #18.^[33]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Site
• Duke Nukem Forever at GameSpot
• Duke4.net, a Duke Nukem Forever fansite
• PlanetDuke, a Duke Nukem fansite
• duke.a-13.net, a list of events that have occurred since the announcement of DNF

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