Duke Nukem Forever, which was not

We will not conceal sin - for many, the legendary long-term construction company Duke Nukem Forever , which they began to develop in 1997 and were released only 14 years later , in 2011, turned out to be a real disappointment . This, of course, did not prevent your humble servant from getting together with friends and going through the game in one night, quite enjoying yourself from it; However, cult status like Duke Nukem 3D was out of the question .



During the development of the game they managed to christen the "Holy Grail" and bury it repeatedly; there were jokes on the forums that the game itself does not exist in principle. But what do we really know about the Duke Nukem Forever development process today? Yes, almost nothing.

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Trailer from E3 2001 with a demonstration of the original DNF build (2001)



Today, the network has some details that shed light on the most famous long-term gaming industry. As it turned out, the DNF version on the Unreal Engine, which existed in 2001, was 90% ready - and the game included elements of horror and RPG. At least, this is exactly what Frederick Schreiber , the vice president of 3DRealms, who developed the game, claims. Information came from the Discord dedicated to the games about Duke Nyukema.



The game itself was grim, even by 2001 standards. According to Schreiber, during the game you had to find out the cause of the mysterious events occurring in it. Singleplayer consisted of about 25 levels, and multiplayer - 12 levels, and most of them have already been completed. The game had episodes in rooms where sudden blackouts occurred, and the player was waiting in dark corners for monsters and frightened by distant cries (which, generally speaking, suspiciously resembles Doom 3, which was then in the early stages of development and was moving in the same direction). There were levels in the game in the open air, and most of the game in the plot was raining and lightning flashed.



The most remarkable feature of the game, which was never told, was a motorcycle. After you found him at one of the initial levels, you could move around the semi-open Vegas to other areas of it (in addition to the motorcycle, the game also had a subway for similar purposes). You took quests from NPCs in some areas and went to others to fulfill them. This was somewhat reminiscent of GTA or any modern RPG, albeit with loading screens between locations.



The development of this version of the game was from 1999 to 2002. The process of passing the 2001 build took 14-16 hours. You could choose which quests to do, and you had inventory for various items (badges, key cards, etc.), which was pretty much like Deus Ex .



The problem, which eventually led to the cessation of work on that version of the game, was the decision of one of the founders of Duke, George Broussard. The game was created on the Unreal Engine, but the developers decided to create a new renderer in the spirit of Doom 3, which allowed to draw shadows in real time and improve the lighting on the levels.



As a result of the transition from static lighting to dynamic creators of the game, all levels in the game turned black - after all, the static light stopped working. They were forced to redraw all textures from 2002 to 2004; at first, the developers tried instead to write a tool that would allow generating normal maps, but nothing good came of it - the final result looked awful. As a result, they got Doom 3 , but without normal maps - and the game still looked quite average.



Information about this fact, along with screenshots of the 2003 version of the game, was posted on RPGCodex :











What was it about the 2001 version of the game that did not live to see the release?

• At one of the first levels of the game there is a computer from which it was possible to send an email to oneself. Unfortunately, the game now crashes when someone tries to do this, because the old POP3 server has been disabled.
• Each weapon had an alternate shooting mode (RPG / Nuke, Shotgun / Slug / Acid).
• In-game levels were more and more open (similar to Half-Life, Deus Ex) - you could activate side quests by talking to other NPCs.
• The game included a mini-game with a stripper in the spirit of Dance Dance Revolution
• The game had a much more serious tone than the release version released in 2011; jokes, of course, were present, but the game did not try to build a comedy of itself.

Weapon selection screen in Duke Nukem Forever (2001)



Let's be honest: often, when it already seems to us that the project is 90% ready, in practice it suddenly turns out that there is not even 10% of work ahead, but as many more. Therefore, the build is hardly a full game. Therefore, it is not surprising that 3D Realms is interested in obtaining funding to complete the very legendary version of the game - however, they have problems with licensing. Now the rights to Duke belong to Gearbox , and apparently the case is unlikely to ever get off the ground .





Presumably, a screenshot of an unknown level of Duke Nukem Forever of an earlier period.





Game console Duke Nukem Forever (2001)



As proof of his words, Frederic Schreiber uploaded a screenshot of the directory with the game build files that the company allegedly brought to the E3 exhibition in 2001.







Have you already wondered what other secrets Schreiber keeps on his computer? There are very few of them: 6 builds of the very Prey , which was developed within the walls of 3DRealms from 1995 to 1998, and which no one except the developers themselves have ever seen ...