Imagine: Vaporware – Duke Nukem Forever

By Shaun McIlroy, 8:19 pm on March 5, 2009 · 1 Comment

Man, it feels like forever since this was announced. Now that the terrible pun’s out of the way, let’s talk Duke Nukem Forever (DNF), which was announced by 3D Realms in 1997. This title is notorious to the point that it went on to win Wired Magazine’s ‘Vaporware of the Year’ award on many occasions. They even went as far as to CREATE a Lifetime Vaporware Achievement award just to get it off the list each year; this didn’t last long though, as it resurfaced back at the top spot in 2008. Here’s a bit of a timeline for this title, our latest non-release in the ‘Imagine: Vaporware’ series of games:

Duke Nukem Forever is officially announced on April 28, 1997
In August and September ’97, the first screenshots of DNF were released in PC Gamer.
3D Realms unveils the first video footage of DNF at the 1998 E3 conference. It is shown to be using the Quake II engine.
In June 1998, the 3D Realms team switches to Epic’s Unreal Engine. Fans become concerned.
In 1999, 3D Realms announced that they had upgraded to the newer version of the Unreal Engine. After releasing a second batch of screenshots on November 1 that showcased Duke Nukem Forever on the Unreal engine for the first time, they heavily implied the title would launch in 2000.
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 rewrites the renderer and other game engine modules essentially beginning work on a new generation of game content. Director George Broussard estimates that around 95% of the previous level design work was unfortunately scrapped in the process.
Not long afterward Broussard stated that they were never less than two years away from shipping with the UT based version of the game. Hmmm….
Jeffrey Lapin, CEO of Take Two, says 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.
Didn’t happen….
On March 21, 2006, 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller talked of a sequel by stating, “of course as soon as Duke is done we’ll begin a new one.”. Which is to say, it’s never coming!
A new video is 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.
Duke Nukem Forever is absent from 2008′s E3. Prior to the event, Scott Miller, the CEO of 3D Realms, described E3 as “irrelevant.”
On January 12th, 2009 George Broussard posted on his Twitter account “Game developers often say ‘Cutting is shipping’. We begin this year with a vengeance and a chainsaw”.
As the Mayan Calendar Apocalypse approaches in 2012, the world ends with Duke Nukem Forever’s release.

Is this game even relevant anymore? They should just release what they have now or come clean, admit it doesn’t exist, and be done with this seemingly endless saga of vaporware. What do you people think? Do you still want some of the Duke? Or would you rather have some more Fenix? Comments below!