Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Duke Nukem Forever.

To do:
Everything, not limited to..

Sources for anything and everything mentioned here.
Both the art book included with the Balls of Steel deluxe edition (and the limited-edition hardcover strategy guide from Prima Games) contain a lot of art and information about the game that's not on the DNF Museum, or really accessible easily (as far as I know). Try to find or produce a full, clean scan of them online.
Some sub-pages are more complete than others (i.e. 1998, 1999, 2001, 2009, 2011-2012), try to prioritise finishing those first.
Some prerelease images and concept art have been uploaded to the wiki, so just check what's here before you upload a new image.
Add some stuff about Duke Nukem 5/Vengeance here.
When this is all done, go through for one last comb through and quick clean-up.

Where to possibly begin? The near 15-year-long development of Duke Nukem Forever led to it being the butt of many jokes, such as "Forever" referring to the game's development time.

Buckle in folks, because there is a LOT to get through.

Summarized Development Timeline

1994-1995

Early 1994 - New Zealand-based developer Darrin Hurd and his friends begin work on a Prince of Persia-like side-scrolling platformer for Apogee Software Productions (Who would later adopt the name 3D Realms by the release of Duke Nukem 3D).
June 1994 - Hurd receives a contract from Apogee to continue working full-time on the platformer game.
1995 - During the development of Duke Nukem 3D, George Broussard, the future lead project manager of Forever watches Batman Forever and decides that a sequel to Duke Nukem 3D should use "forever" as a subtitle.

1996

Duke Nukem 3D's shareware version releases on January 29th, with the full game coming out on April 19th. During or just after either of these dates 3D Realms asks Darrin and his team to change their platformer into a fourth Duke Nukem title to leverage hype.
C. early/mid 1996 - Duke Nukem Forever (stylized as Duke Nukem 4 Eva) enters development as a 2D platformer going back to Duke’s original roots.
September 7th - Joe Siegler on Usenet, announces that 3D Realms is working on a new a new side-scroller and namedrops Duke Nukem Forever.
October 8th - Compile date of the first and earliest of the leaked 1996 builds.
October 16th - George Broussard and Scott Miller partake in an interview, where Duke Nukem Forever is discussed.
October 21st - Compile date of the second leaked 1996 build.
October 24th - Compile date of the third leaked 1996 build.
November 8th - Compile date of the fourth and last of the leaked 1996 builds.
December 15th - Internal development of Duke Nukem Forever begins at 3D Realms in the Quake iteration of id Tech 2. The fate of the side-scroller is likely decided not long after this.

1997

Early 1997 - A group of developers and programmers from 3D Realms leave to form Rebel Boat Rocker.
Early 1997 (circa February?) - The 2D platformer iteration of the game is scrapped due to the huge popularity of Duke Nukem 3D, and 3D Realms choses to develop a proper successor to Duke Nukem 3D in-house. The 4 Eva styling is also dropped.
February 20th - A bunch of .zip files containing what was left over from development of the side-scroller are made.
April 25th - Brian "Whaleboy" Cozzens is announced to be joining the team as an artist, modeler and sketch/concept artist.
April 28th - The game is officially announced by 3D Realms in a press release, with GT Interactive set to be the publisher, the game to utilise the Quake II version of the id Tech 2 engine and a planned release date of mid-1998.
May - Randy Pitchford, who would serve as an executive producer of the final game, leaves 3D Realms to join Rebel Boat Rocker.
August 27th - Mark Morgan and Chris Hargrove are announced to be joining the team.
September 19th - The first screenshot of the game is released.
October 19th - 11 new screenshots debut in Issue 42 of PC Gamer magazine.
December 8th - 3D Realms receives the source code of the (now completed) Quake II engine.

1998

January - 3D Realms receives further id Tech 2 development tools.
January 13th - Dallas-based Gathering of Developers (GODGames), Duke Nukem Forever's soon-to-be publisher, is founded.
March 16th - GT Interactive releases a press kit, containing a excel sheet with releases for 1998. Duke Nukem Forever is given a release date of November that year.
May 28th - The game is shown off at E3 1998, little shown would appear in later builds.
June 15th - 3D Realms announces its switch from the Quake II engine to the Unreal Engine, due to the latter having an easier time at rendering wide-open spaces. This marks the first engine change.
June 22nd - Scott Miller quickly produces a game outline with ideas and things he would like to see in Duke Nukem Forever.
August 17th - Paul Richards is announced to be joining the team as an artist.
October 30th - Charlie Wiederhold is announced to be joining the team.

1999

February 16th - Gearbox Software is founded by Randy Pitchford and a couple of his colleges from Rebel Boat Rocker (some of whom were originally from 3D Realms) after their first and only game Prax War 2018 is cancelled in January.
March 5th - 3D Realms reveals that the band Megadeth will perform the main theme of Forever, Grabbag. This cover wouldn't end up in the final game.
March 8th - Motion capture setup is confirmed to have nearly been finished.
April 6th - Sven Technologies announces that 3D Realms will make use of its Multi-Resolution Geometry technology for Duke Nukem Forever.
April 16th - Brandon Reinhart creates the file MasterServer.ini, this file would still present in the final release.
August 23rd - The album, Duke Nukem: Music to Score By is released, containing Megadeth's unused cover of Grabbag.
October 22nd - Scott Miller confirms that the team is working in the Unreal Tournament version of Unreal Engine in an interview.
November 1st - 10 screenshots of the game now in Unreal Engine are released.
December 23rd - A CD comprising of assets from 1998 and 1999 is made.

2000

Unknown - Broussard hires an unknown writer to write a script for the game.
March 23rd - Broussard sends two emails to developer Action Forms on how the ego system works in Duke Nukem Forever.
May 1st - GODGames is acquired by Take-Two Interactive.
December 4th - Gathering of Developers acquires publishing rights from GT Interactive.

2001

May 3rd - Douglas Wayne Myres Jr., one of the co-founders of Gathering of Developers, passes away from an asthma attack. GODGames announces his death the following day.
May 8th - According to legal documents during their lawsuit with them, 3D Realms enters into a license agreement with Take-Two Interactive.
May 17th - A new trailer is shown at E3 2001. It includes a tribute to Myres and the infamous quote, "When It's Done."
August - Parent company Take-Two Interactive closes GODGames' Texas offices and moves them to New York.
August 21st - Compile date of the first leaked 2001 build.
September 13th - 3D Realms sends a letter to Mark Rein of Epic Games proposing the use of Unreal and Unreal Tournament levels in Duke Nukem Forever as deathmatch levels, Rein agrees to this on the 19th.
October 24th - Nick Schaffer accesses the editor briefly in the afternoon.
October 26th - Compile date of the second leaked 2001 build, along with its source code.

2002

Lee Jackson composes two music tracks, Lenoman Theme and Grabbag - Lenoman Band Version, for the in-universe talk show host Johnny O' Lenoman. His tracks would end up in the final game.
January 7th - Duke Nukem Forever wins Wired Magazine's annual vaporware awards for 2001. Miller accepts the award stating "The proof will be in the pudding."
Unknown - Broussard decides that a winter level should be in Duke Nukem Forever after playing The Thing, no such level made the final cut.
August - 3D Realms implements MathEngine's Karma physics engine, into the game.

2003

Unknown - According to a former employee, there were only 18 people working on the game this year.
3D Realms begins adding Direct3D 9 support into the game.
January 3rd - Duke Nukem Forever wins Wired's vaporware awards again. Broussard accepts the award, stating "We're undeniably late and we know it."
February - Take-Two announces that it is taking a $14.5 million write-down; $5.5 million of this being thanks to Duke Nukem Forever.
April 1st - The source code of Duke Nukem 3D and a "port" of Forever for the Atari 2600 is released to compensate for the lack of release.
May 29th - Jeffrey Lapin, the then CEO of Take-Two Interactive, states that the game won't release by the end of the year, George Broussard responds with a post on Shacknews saying that "Take2 needs to STFU IMO."
December 18th - Lapin states that he was told by 3D Realms they expected the game to ship in the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005

2004

January 20th - Wired Magazine awards Duke Nukem Forever it's very own Lifetime Achievement Award, in an attempt to get it off the vaporware awards.
Unknown - Scott Miller, seeing the game was in deep trouble, gets in contact with Digital Extremes so they can help finish the game, everyone was in favor except many at 3D Realms.
September 27th - The physics engine Meqon Game Dynamics SDK is announced to be used in Forever, replacing the Karma engine. Broussard encourages everyone to download a few demos for the engine to demonstrate what it is capable of doing.

2005

December - Owing to burn-out and little progress, developers begin leaving 3D Realms for new jobs and greener pastures.

2006

January 31st - George Broussard states in an interview that the game's assets have been finalized (they weren't).
February 6th - Thanks to reader demand, Duke Nukem Forever wins Wired's 2005 vaporware awards after being removed.
Unknown - Journalists are shown the game at a presentation, with a very nervous Broussard as their host. Broussard tells a guest there "We fucked up. Basically, we threw everything out and started again", implying that another restart of development has happened.
August - The game's staff is now only 18 people again; Between 7 - 10 employees have left since last December.
December 27th - Duke Nukem Forever win Wired's vaporware awards again for 2006.

2007

January 25th - Broussard posts an ad on Gamasutra, including a single screenshot showing artist Mark Skelton's Duke model in action.
May 22nd - Broussard posts another ad on Gamasutra; With it, a new screenshot with a Pigcop.
October - 3D Realms gives a license to Take-Two allowing them to make a console-exclusive Duke game.
December - Gearbox Software is hired to work on Take-Two's Duke game, which became known as Duke Begins.
December 19th - A new trailer is released. This trailer features Duke curling, aliens attacking and no gameplay.

2008

January 20th - Duke Nukem Forever wins thrice in a row for Wired's 2007 awards.
February 2008 - Brian Hook joins development as project lead.
May 20th - Broussard posts one more job listing on Gamasutra, with another image of Duke.
June 4th - New footage of the game debuts on The Jace Hall Show, shot with hand-held cameras and from six months earlier according to Broussard.
July 29th - An Excel document outlining the flow of levels is last modified. The document claims that the game was about 60.8% complete at the time of writing.
September 24th - The Xbox Live Arcade version of Duke Nukem 3D is released, two new screenshots of Duke Nukem Forever are unlocked if every achievement has been earned.
December 29th - Wired considers removing the game off of its vaporware awards for 2008, but reconsiders when the footage from The Jace Hall Show surfaces. DNF wins first place.

2009

January 12th - Broussard says in a post to Twitter: "Game developers often say "Cutting is shipping". We begin this year with a vengeance and a chainsaw." meaning that anything that wasn't running well on Xbox 360 was scrapped and as such the game is made to be more linear.
April - Duke Begins is put on hold after $2.5 million in advance royalties were delivered to 3D Realms to continue Forever's development. <--Verify: Some assets from Duke Begins would seemingly make their way into the final game when Gearbox continued development.-->
Early May - 3D Realms demands an additional $6 million to complete development. Take-Two Interactive only offers $2.5 million.
May 6th - Development of Duke Nukem Forever is suspended.
May 8th - 3D Realms lays off the game's staff. Screenshots, concept art, pictures of models, design documents and a goodbye message from former employees are released/leaked in the following days.
May 11th - 3D Realms is given an order not to alter the source code or assets of Duke Nukem Forever by the New York court.
May 12th - Take-Two sues 3D Realms for being unable to complete the game.
May 18th - 3D Realms issues a statement to the press regarding the lawsuit.
May 29th - The case is transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
June - Nine former 3D Realms employees form Triptych Games to continue development.
June 19th - 3D Realms responds to Take-Two's allegations through a court document.
November - Triptych Games finishes work on the singleplayer campaign. A trailer is made around this time as well.
December 21st - Duke Nukem Forever is excluded from Wired's 2009 vaporware awards, as the game was seen to be finally dead (at the time).
Late December - A compilation video of gameplay is leaked.

2010

January - Triptych Games and Gearbox Software begin negotiating a deal so that they can finish development.
January - At Magfest 2010, Jon St. John gives hope to the game's future by stating people should "Read between the lines" as for why he can't discuss the game.
February - Triptych moves to Gearbox's offices to help polish the game and develop console ports. Piranha Games is also brought in for support and to help development multiplayer.
May 14th - 3D Realms and Take-two settle the lawsuit and dismiss it with prejudice. Miller would later post on his Facebook status: Ripped off its head, and read the newspaper.
August 11th - Kotaku reports that Gearbox is continuing development of the game.
September 3rd - Duke Nukem Forever is re-announced, this time at the 2010 Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle.
September 5th - Gearbox announces that it has acquired the intellectual property rights to the Duke Nukem Franchise and those that bought the Game of the Year Edition of Borderlands would get early access to the demo.
October - Gameplay is shown off at the 2010 Firstlook gaming convention in Amsterdam.
December - Gearbox releases two new screenshots of the game.

2011-2012

2011

January 3rd - Duke Nukem Forever returns to Wired's vaporware list for 2010 after Gearbox resumes development. It fails to win first place.
March 24th - Randy Pitchford, in a tongue-in-cheek video, announces that game has been delayed one last time from its original May 3rd (North America) and May 6th (International) release dates to June 10th (International, barring Japan) and June 14th (North America).
May 24th - Gearbox announces that the game has gone gold, 3D Realms re-posts the news on their blog.
June 1st - The Windows version of the demo is complied.
June 3rd - The demo for Duke Nukem Forever is released to members of the First Access Club.
June 10th - Duke Nukem Forever is released worldwide except in North America and Japan (on consoles).
June 14th - Duke Nukem Forever is released in North America.
June 21st - The demo is released to the wider public.
August 2nd - A patch for the PC version of the game is released, notably allowing the ability to carry 4 weapons instead of 2.
August 18th - A port of the game to Mac OS X from Aspyr Media is released across all regions.
October 11th - the multiplayer DLC Hail to the Icons Parody Pack is released. It contains new weapons and maps based on other popular first-person shooters.
December 13th - the singleplayer DLC The Doctor Who Cloned Me is released. It sees the return of Doctor Proton, a recurring villain of the series. Proton was once the main antagonist of Forever before being replaced later into development.

2012

March 8th - The DLCs are released for the Mac version on Steam.
March 29th - The game releases in Japan on consoles, complete with dubbed Duketalk and censored content.

Sub-Pages

Overview

An analysis of certain aspects of development.

Differences
Every difference, change and upgrade (or downgrade!) throughout development.

Characters
Characters, from those who appear in the final game, ones only in early builds and everyone in between.

Concept Art
With so much discarded concepts for this game, its bound to need its own page!

Development Timeline

The full complete timeline of Duke Nukem Forever.

Early Development
Random ideas for the game, including when it wasn't even a Duke game or sequel talk when Duke Nukem 3D hadn't shipped yet!

1996
The almost 15-year journey begins as a side-scroller.

1997
With the 2D platformer discarded, internal development at 3D Realms begins the in the Quake engine.

1998
The game moves into the Quake II engine with its first gameplay and trailer shown off at E3, but it's not too long before the change to Unreal Engine.

1999
The transition from id Tech 2 to Unreal engine begins, updates quiet down for a while until the end of the year.

2000
3D Realms continues transitioning to Unreal but hey, at least Duke found his way with G.O.D.

2001
The game's second appearance at E3 produces a lot of hype thanks to the trailer.

2002
The KARMA physics engine is implemented into the game.

2003
Fancy new lighting tech is implemented into the game, but this causes all the maps to black out, requiring serious reworking.

2004
The game also gets a new physics engine from Meqon.

2005-2006
Developers have been living en masse since the end of December 2005. Many post their work on portfolios as seemingly another restart occurs.

2007-2008
Updates for the game become scarcer, with a new screenshot or video showing up every now and then.

2009
With additional funding unable to be negotiated, development is suspended and 3D Realms lays off its entire staff, eventually leading to a lawsuit from Take-Two. For a brief while, it seemed like things were done for Duke...

2010
But never fear, Gearbox Software is here! Triptych Games moves into Gearbox to get help with finishing the game.

2011-2012
The homestretch of development, one last delay and the eventual release!

Gearbox's Official Timeline

Gearbox included a timeline of their own as a part of the extras in the final game. Located in Extras/Development Timeline.

(Source: DukeNukemForeverVaul)

Duke Nukem 5

Yes, 3D Realms had talked on many occasions during Duke Nukem Forever's development about a follow-up tentatively titled Duke Nukem 5. According to Scott Miller, the game would've actually been titled Duke Nukem Vengeance, continuing the sequel pun titles of previous games (e.g. Duke Nukem 3D = Duke Nukem 3, Duke Nukem Forever = Duke Nukem 4).

Duke Nukem 5 was planned to have been one of the first games to make use of the 1997-1998 Prey's "portal technology" engine. Corrine Yu's engine.^[1]

According to Miller, ^[2]

Ultimately what would've been 3D Realms vision for a Duke Nukem 5 would never be realised, considering that Duke Nukem Forever spiralled into development hell.

While many individuals from Gearbox and 2K/Take-Two discussed the possibility of future instalments following Duke Nukem Forever's release, to date

Scrapped Release of Older Builds

In a livestream broadcasted on July 7th, 2017 with fan site duke4.net, Pitchford would bring up at the 49:56 mark about the possibility of releasing older builds of Duke Nukem Forever as a part of a "definite collection" for the Duke Nukem series.^[3]

Pitchford would continue to discuss the possibility of this on many occasions on both his Twitter account and in various interviews. However, he would eventually stop discussing this possibility.

Its unclear if Gearbox will ever go forward with this idea. This has become even more uncertain following the leaking of the 2001 and 1996 prototypes in 2022.

References

https://duke4ever.altervista.org
https://legacy.3drealms.com/news/duke_nukem/duke_nukem_forever/
https://shacknews.com/topic/duke-nukem-forever
https://www.wired.com/2009/12/fail-duke-nukem
https://www.dukenukemforever.com/html/us/news.html
Gearbox's official Duke Nukem Forever development timeline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Duke_Nukem_Forever

↑ Corrinne Yu joins 3D Realms as Lead Technology Programmer - 3D Realms, November 20th 1998
↑ 3D Realms Boss Sheds Light on Duke Nukem Forever's Tortured Development - IGN Unfiltered - YouTube, October 15th 2018
↑ Duke4.net Chat - YouTube, July 7th 2017

Info Yet to Be Incorporated

Below is info that needs to get incorporated.

Blue's News
Partial archive of various 3DR .plan files
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gt-interactive-responds-to-3d-realms-loss/1100-2462172/ GT Interactive responds to G.O.D games.
https://imgur.com/a/n1REf#8VLmi Scan of PC Gamer November 1997 article about Forever.
https://www.eurogamer.net/news051005dnf
https://www.eurogamer.net/p-dukenukemforevermar2004-pc Preview of the game by Eurogamer.
D-Day (return of the game tease) here and here.
Release dates, Oceania and certain parts of Asia might have gotten the game a day early.
Completion state of the game in 2001, Doomworld thread about it.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbgbm/why-do-people-still-care-about-duke-nukem-forever-so-much
Various magazine CDs with screenshots/video (May have duplicates/nothing new but maybe still worth noting.)
Court documents from online library
Archive of some news on duke4.net
Interviews and such with 3D Realms employes.
Various developer .plan files.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010125082400/http://planetnukem.com/features.html#articles
https://web.archive.org/web/20001206102700/http://www.radiated.net/gameinfo/interviews.html
https://web.archive.org/web/19991010024028/http://www.3drealms.com/misc/interviews.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20010524004935/http://www.planetduke.com/

George Broussard

https://www.eurogamer.net/news121005dukenukemupdate
Lots of Broussard comments
https://www.shacknews.com/user/GeorgeB3DR/posts Broussard's posts on Shacknews chatty threads.
https://forums.duke4.net/topic/690-the-information-and-quotes-thread/ More various Broussard comments (also has some comments from Miller and some other developers).

Scott Miller

Might be a good idea to keep a close eye on Scott Miller's Twitter and Linkedin, seeing that he has posted various stuff from Apogee/3D Realms history, including some Duke Nukem Forever stuff.
https://www.shacknews.com/user/Scott3DR/posts Miller's posts on Shacknews chatty threads.
Scott Miller was on an episode of IGN Unfiltered where he talked about 3D Realms and their games, DNF included (section of the video where he talks about DNF exclusively).

Randy Pitchford

https://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/2972677 there is probably nothing here but whatever
Randy Pitchford interviews on PlayStation blog:
- https://blog.playstation.com/2011/04/20/duke-nukem-forever-ps3-details-and-duke%e2%80%99s-playstation-roots/
- https://blog.playstation.com/2011/06/01/duke-nukem-forever-randy-pitchford-talks-ps3-version-playstation-legacy/
Pitchford teases the next Duke game from Gearbox (which never came).
Livestream hosted by duke4.net with Pitchford (and some other Gearbox employees).
Pitchford talking about the possible release of prototype builds from 2018-2020

Other Developers/Misc

Take-Two's then CEO Strauss Zelnick promises more Duke games in future.
Run down of the games development on Aspyr Media's GameAgent site.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110531133806/http://www.evga.com/articles/00633/
https://web.archive.org/web/20110529020512/http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/duke-nukem-forever-soundboard/id438195496?mt=8
https://web.archive.org/web/20110530113518/http://www.gearboxity.com/content/view/647/33/
Portfolios from Kevin Meek and Viola Halim.
Charlie Weiderhold's various comments on duke4.net.
Interview with Jay Brushwood by TWiT Video Game Show in June 2011.
Undated photos from here.

Story Stuff

Gary Whitta had penned the story to earlier versions of the game (1 2)
Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of Zero Punctuation fame had been contacted about writing a script around 2007-2008 by Brian Hook.
- Video with former developer that discussed it, Yahtzee confirming/discussing it and 2014 Vice interview where it is discussed again by him.

Trademark Stuff

[1] Corrinne Yu joins 3D Realms as Lead Technology Programmer - 3D Realms, November 20th 1998

[2] 3D Realms Boss Sheds Light on Duke Nukem Forever's Tortured Development - IGN Unfiltered - YouTube, October 15th 2018

[3] Duke4.net Chat - YouTube, July 7th 2017

[1]

[2]

[3]

Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever

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