Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever/2007-2008

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

To do: Still a lot more left to go. Will need some cleaning-up when it is done.

Between the years of 2007 and 2008, updates or attention about the game were not as large as it once was with news reduced to a new screenshot or video every now and then.

2007

January 2007

George Broussard posts an ad on Gamasutra for a job as a programmer on January 25th, included in the listing is a single screenshot from the game.

On a Shacknews chatty thread, Broussard described the image as an "In game shot." He would reaffirm this alongside stating the image was done only for the ad and that major news well surface later, in a post on the forums the following day.

March 2007

March 20th

Yougamers would publish an interview with Miller held over email. Questions about Duke Nukem Forever are inevitably asked (and are the only ones noted on this page).

It would be rash of YouGamers to miss a great opportunity to ask Scott some questions about Duke Nukem Forever - perhaps the most famous game that’s not available…yet! The first thought we had though was ‘why?’ It’s been nearly 5 years since the last Duke game on a PC was released and although it was critically accepted, it was perhaps not the Duke game many fans were expecting; is it not a case that Duke’s time is now long gone?

Scott: First, we fully admit we’re screwed up the development of DNF, and it’s now an industry joke. I laugh (and cry) when I think about it, too. Our fault is that we set the bar too high, and we tried too hard to make the game to beat all games. In the last 18 months we’ve taken a much more realistic look at the project, we’ve hired a truckload of experienced help, and I personally believe we are now on the right track…finally.

As for the question of Duke’s lasting appeal, I believe strongly that it doesn’t matter at all. DNF will succeed or fail not because of the Duke brand, but solely based on whether the game is great, or not. The original Duke Nukem 3D didn’t have a large fan following, and yet it succeeded. DNF will have to stand on its own just the same.

Now it’s not unheard for games to have development times of several years (Half Life 2 being very notable, as an example) but it’s perhaps fair to say that none have had such an ‘interesting’ progress as Duke Nukem Forever! We asked him to be as brief as possible and here’s what Scott had to say about just why it has taken so long just to get to the point they’re at now:

Scott: As I said above, it comes down to our desire to not let fans down with anything less than perfection. However, perfection is not possible – that’s the biggest lesson we’ve learned. No game is perfect. Well, maybe Tetris. ;-)

DNF is also famous for its use of engines but the truth on the matter is:

Scott: We started with the Quake engine, but within six or so months we switched to the Unreal engine. However, I’m reminded of the story about the man who claimed to own the axe that George Washington used to chop down the cherry tree. The man said, “Yeah, it’s the same axe alright, but the head and handle have both been replaced a few times over the last 200 years of use.” The same applies with the Unreal engine we licensed so long ago.

Translation? Still on the ‘Unreal’ engine but nothing like the same version that they started with all that time ago! Licensed engines are just one part of the whole middleware package and the growth of tools for developers has been quite noticeable over the past 5 years or so - one would think that this would make life easier for a typical developer but is this being too naïve?

Scott: It’s true; these tools can make life easier. Just not as easier as the middleware providers like to hype. There are nearly always problems to overcome or modifications that are needed. Still, they shake out as a big net positive for the most part.

Scott politely refrained from spilling any juicy details about the engine and technology details of DNF but given its past history, this is understandable. So much has been said and not said, but rumoured, that anything now would almost certainly be taken out of context. However, Scott did have some reassurance that DNF would be aimed for a wide range of hardware configurations stating that:

Scott: Our general approach is a common one, I think: We try to support all of the newer, cool whiz-bang graphics features, but at the same time we try to make it so the game will run on middle-range machines, too.

Fans of Prey will hopefully remember the aliens’ choice of music, which made sense when Scott had this to say about the importance of scores and audio effects in a modern game:

Scott: We believe strongly in the power of music, and we used award-winning composer Jeremy Soule (and his brother, Julian) for Prey, which had three hours of original music, plus over an hour of licensed music, like Don’t Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult. I hope we have something equally as impressive for DNF.

Cynics may not believe this but Duke Nukem Forever is in full development and has a team of 33 people working on it; surely the history of its production would scare off potential workers, yes?

Scott: You would think so, but not at all. In fact, in the last year especially we’ve dramatically upgraded the level of experienced & talented developers in-house, hiring key developers from several blockbuster projects. These new developers have made a stunningly positive impact on the project. And we continue to hire. I think when any developer visits our studio, meets the people already here, and sees what we already have in place…well, it becomes an easy sell.

Given the publishing experience of 3DRealms and their willingness to tackle difference platforms, it made sense to enquire as to what lies ahead for DNF too. For example, are Take 2 Interactive Software still publishing Duke Nukem Forever? Given the amount of experience 3D Realms has in the production area, it might make more sense for 3DRealms to do this themselves:

Scott: Possibly, but Take2 has inherited the agreement we originally signed with GT Interactive back in the 90’s. This agreement does allow us to direct sale the game, such as through an online digital service, and we plan to take full advantage of this.

The point about using a digital service is a good one as we’ve seen a huge increase in its usage for shipping games; the two most well-known being Steam and Direct2Drive. Finally, concerning DNF, we enquired as to what platforms the game is being planned for: multiple or PC only?

Scott: The plan is definitely to bring DNF to multiple platforms. We have not announced which ones, yet.

Which should come as no surprise really - consoles are more than powerful enough to run against some of the latest hardware, so we should hopefully see few compromises between the different platform versions of Duke Nukem Forever.

The interview concludes with a cheeky question to Miller asking what his favorite joke about the game's prolonged development.

YouGamers: We know you’ve heard them all but what’s been your favourite Duke Nukem Forever joke you’ve seen? :)

Scott: It’s hard to resist the cold, cruel, but true: Duke Nukem Taking Forever. My two sons, in particular, love to slam me with this one. :)

May 2007

Broussard posts another ad for a position of programmer on Gamasutra, this time with an image of a Pigcop.

June 2007

On the 4th, the video Ventrilo Harassment - Duke Nukem Forever is uploaded to YouTube by user VideoCompiler. This video has absolutely nothing to do with the development of Duke Nukem Forever, but Gearbox apparently found it noteworthy enough to include in their official timeline.

(Source: Reupload of the video.)

December 2007

December 18th

Last Saturday we had our annual company Christmas party. It was a lot of fun as usual but it featured one special surprise. It turns out that several people had been secretly working late nights and into the wee hours of the morning preparing a special video for those at the party. They created a short teaser for Duke Nukem Forever.

After seeing the teaser we thought it was something we should share with all of you and while it's just a teaser, rest assured more is coming.

Tomorrow, Wednesday the 19th, around noon CST, we will release the first teaser trailer from Duke Nukem Forever. To tide you over until then, here is a screen shot taken from the teaser.

Thank you for being fans of the game and for your continued patience.

I'd like to thank the people on the team that worked so hard to create this teaser and the friends of 3DR that helped create it (Jeremy Soule and Julian Soule, Frank Bry, Jason Evigan and of course, Jon St. John).

Broussard would make another post asking people to manage expectations over the trailer.

Guys just to manage expectations...

This is a teaser. It's not a full blown trailer like the 2001 trailer (but something like that is coming). I tried to be clear about that in the message board post, so just bear in mind that it's a teaser :)

Enjoy.

December 19th

To do: An alternative version included with the final game has a different line said by Duke at the end ("What you'd expect? Forevers a long time, bitch". Add an audio file of this.

Shacknews debuts a new trailer. Despite claims that might suggest it, this trailer doesn't feature any gameplay and is just cinematics.

George Broussard also partakes in a Shacknews Chatty thread.

To do: This isn't the full thing, add anything else of note.

oatmela: what engine is it using? Not bashing at all, just curious.

Broussard: Unreal. I believe we branched off somewhere around the Unreal 2 time when they added static meshes. Since then we've redone the rendering 100% and it's a fully modern engine.

jimvolk: Now that the game has been through such a long development process and revisions, will it still be a LONG game? or will it be a fairly short experience (ala Prey)? Surely after 9-10 years, we can all hope for a decent length game, and a wide multiplayer experience.

Broussard: The game has not been one continuous game worked on. It's probably re-started 3+ times due to various issues. The current (and last) version is 2004-ish. As for game length we should be similar to competitive games in our genre.

Unleashed: how long does it take for one of your characters/monsters(duke for example) to get modeled/textured and ingame?

Broussard: 6 weeks?

Sturm08: What's your favorite part of the game so far?

Broussard: I like environment puzzles, and blowing the heads and arms off of things.

smacknca: any regrets breaking the long media silence with this teaser? its pretty obvious many people didnt quite get the whole 'this is just a teaser made by some cool folks at 3DR for the holidays and we wanted to share with the world'

Broussard: Gotta start somewhere. No regrets. With our development history if you let regrets bother you, you'd jump off the nearest roof. Onward and upward.

omnova: Is environment interactivity going to be a bullet point in the game's feature list?

Broussard: Big, big, yes.

pyrogen: Will it have over-the-top gibs flying everywhere? You know, the old-fashioned kind with body chunks and blood trails everywhere.

Broussard: Yes. But in a way that makes sense. Shotguns pull limbs off, but not a machine gun or pistol. Explode something or set off a pipe bomb and you can remove limbs that are within splash range and take enough individual damage. But yes, gibs are back.

Mister Groin: Which do you prefer? Boxes or barrels?

Broussard: To hide behind....unbreakable boxes and non explosive barrels. To shoot at, the opposite :)

edgewise: How many lines of dialog are you recording for Duke?

Broussard: We're definitely going to record 'I'm gonna kill you old school."

painangel: will I be able to impale aliens with a raging man unit ala brock samson?

Broussard: No, but maybe a forklift. ... Broussard: Gotta run guys. Sorry. More later. We have a lot of work to do, but we really appreciate the interest and support shown today (even if you didn't like it, you checked it out, and that's cool).

2008

February 2008

February 2nd

The Dallas Business Journal runs a story claiming a 2008 release for Duke Nukem Forever. This had come from an interview with Scott Miller.

February 6th

George Broussard issues a statement about the Dallas Business Journal's report.

I'd like to address the article the Dallas Business Journal put up today.

In what appears to be an unfortunate turn of events, there seems to have been some confusion between what was 'off the record' and what was not. I suppose we're used to dealing with gaming press and not mainstream press. Lesson learned.

While we have internal targets, dates and goals, like every developer, we are not ready to share them. What's amazing about this is that the DBJ must have assumed that we'd actually announce a date to them, and not gaming press, and that even in the light of Scott's quote of "We can't make an official announcement.", the DBJ effectively did that. Lesson learned.

The release date is still 'when it's done', and will be until the appropriate moment. Platforms have not been finalized or announced. You can rest assured that we are moving toward a goal and that the recently released teaser trailer is the start of that process and seeing more of the game, sooner than later.

We apologize to gamers and websites everywhere for this series of events. Sometimes, you can be too trusting of people and assume things that come back to bite you. Lesson learned.

February 14th/15th

The Dallas Business Journal would release audio of the interview that caused the article to be written.

Webster: Ideally, we'd like to spotlight some of the projects coming out in 2008: Ghostbusters, Rage, Borderlands, and maybe it's just hopeful on my part, Duke Forever? Of course, you don't have to tell me when it's coming out. I know how…

Miller: It might make this year. We can't make any sort of official announcement. We're pushing for this year. Frankly, I think we're going to miss it by just a by a few months, but it's definitely an internal push.

Webster: Thats really, thats good to hear.

May 20th

May 21st

Broussard would promote the opening with the following post on the forums. A news post about this also made two days later.

Need more help. Must go faster. Scotty, we need more powah!

ATTN: 3DR Forum level designers, local Dallas/Guildhall level designers and level designers everywhere...

http://jobs.gamasutra.com/jobseekerx...2&accountno=95

If you're a pro, or an amateur, if you have talent and passion, feel free to send us your stuff. Programmers interested in game play programming, or with 360 experience should look us up, too.

June 2008

June 5th

New footage of Duke Nukem Forever debuts on The Jace Hall Show hosted by Jason "Jace" Hall, best known as one of the co-founders of Monolith Productions.

June 27th

Miller tells Edge Magazine in an email: "Development is swimming along nicely. Seriously nicely." Miller would also tell them that: "It’s just that we view E3 as irrelevant nowadays. In fact, I wasn’t even aware it was coming up,"

September 2008

September 5th

Play.tm has an interview with Broussard.

On another Duke-related topic, how is Duke Nukem Forever progressing - will this long-awaited FPS title be 3D Realms' next release following DN3D on the XBLA?

DNF should be our next release, but I've learned my lesson on that [smiley]. The game is going well and you can play a lot of it, and we're just trying to finish it.

What do you think modern console gamers will make of the Duke's all-action approach, and do you think future Duke games could focus more on consoles, given the manner in which the PC platform has suffered in recent years?

I think Duke Nukem 3D still holds up pretty well today. It's more of a run and gun action game than modern shooters, but fun is fun, and sometimes you need something different. Every game made today needs to consider consoles, at least in terms of complexity and control layout, so they play well on a console.

September 18th

So, Twitter. I may start using this thing for small random dev updates or whatever. Not sure how regular they'd be, bu we'll see how it goes. With an iPhone and some cool apps like Twitteriffic or Twittelator it's pretty trivial to take a pic with the iPhone and update it to Twitter.

So, if you're into Twitter, follow GeorgeB3DR and we'll see what happens.

www.twitter.com/georgeb3dr

Broussadr would later explain in the thread as for why he had started a discussion about this.

Because the point is just to let people know about it and this forum gets a lot of traffic, and also that dnf is an upcoming product that may see updates on Twitter. It's really pretty simple as to why post it here.

September 23rd

{{quote|Senior designers are presenting a new DNF map to myself and Hook now. Should be cool.

September 25th

GameCyte has an interview with Scott Miller, mostly about the Duke Nukem movie and his Rader Group venture however Duke Nukem Forever is mentioned. Notably this interview is one of the last public acknowledgements of Bombshell prior to her getting cut from the game.

GameCyte: Radar Group, you've said, is all about cultivating "storyverses" and leveraging them across multiple media. But to be honest, while I've always thought there should be a Max Payne movie (and thought A Man Apart was that movie when I saw its trailer), I'd never thought Duke had much of a story or much of a universe. What's changed?

SM: When Duke 3D was released, it was thin on story and characters, no doubt. Max Payne and Prey, though, had better stories and better characters. This is both a function of our growing industry, as well as our growing desire to give more compelling context to all of the gameplay and action. So, by building a storyverse for Duke Nukem, we're bringing that franchise into modern times. A lot of this is going to be seen in Duke Nukem Forever, because we have several key characters besides Duke, including Bombshell and General Graves. And Duke's personality and history will be more prominent in the game.

The bottom line is that Duke Nukem was created before we had the storyverse idea nailed down. Max Payne was our first game that was purposely built as a storyverse -- in large part as a result of the lessons we learned from making Duke Nukem 3D. So, while Duke comes across as a little shallow now, that's only because we haven't released a modern day product that fleshes things out like in recent games.

GameCyte: Scott Faye told Kotaku, "We're expanding Duke's 'storyverse' in a very significant major way without abandoning or negating any element that's being used to introduce Duke to the next gen platforms."

There, it sounds like he's implying two things. First, that Duke Nukem will appear on consoles... and not just as an XBLA release. Has something like that been finalized? Second, he makes it sound like the movie's plot or setting might tie into that of Duke Nukem Forever. Can we expect anything of the sort?

SM: Scott Faye is alluding to the idea that we're adding a lot of story and character material to the franchise, yet at the same time, we're not going to change anything that already exists. For example, we're not going to change Duke's style of deadpanned humor, nor his raw distrust and hate for aliens. So, the key pillars of Duke's storyverse will remain, but there's a lot of new stuff we can add to the storyverse to bring it up to date with the times and give us a lot of new material to play with on future projects, be they films or new games.

The movie, by the way, will not tie into Duke Nukem Forever. It will be a standalone story.

December 2008

December 18th

Broussard makes a post on his Twitter profile.

Keep your eyes peeled. A little xmas surprise is on the way later today. Don't get too excited, but I think you'll like it.

3D Realms releases a final message for the year wishing everyone a merry holidays.

Merry Christmas from 3D Realms

Or if you celebrate something besides Christmas, merry that, too. We at 3D Realms wish to extend a safe and happy holiday wish to all our site visitors. We hope your holiday season brings you something joyful, and something fulfilling. We'll see you on the flip side of the holidays.

In the meantime, we head out to Christmas break with this small treat for you. Due to (how shall we say it), "popular demand", here is a new Duke Nukem Forever wallpaper image.

We have several image sizes available. You can click on your selected image size to download the one you want.

Widescreen: [ 2560x1600 | 1920x1200 | 1680x1050 | 1440x900 ]
Fullscreen: [ 1600x1000 | 1280x800 ]
Those of you who follow our forums regularly might remember this image turning up in a posting from George's twitter feed. It was used on wrapping paper by Allen Blum in our company gift exchange.

References

To do: Incorporate/reference this information below into article.

• January 29, 2008 Down In Front interview with Tramell Isaac
• https://web.archive.org/web/20150512112424/http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?s=69a17e72ff23e2f7af1bea71d99267e2&t=24963
• https://duke4ever.altervista.org/screenshots2007.html
• https://duke4ever.altervista.org/screenshots2008.html
• https://www.shacknews.com/article/45498/duke-nukem-forever-screen-revealed
• Interview with Jace hall where he discusses his time at 3D Realms.
• Twitpic post by Broussard showing the enemies wallpaper screenshot on wrapping paper. Original image needed, link has broken images.
• Broussard on the footage that appeared in the Jace Hall show.
• https://www.shacknews.com/article/51163/3d-realms-disputes-confirmed-reports
• https://web.archive.org/web/20091103175633/http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3156730
• Everything about Raphael Van Lierop joining the team needs to be here. Some starting resources:
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20070529103233/https://particleghost.blogspot.com/2007/03/3dr-visit-sound-as-space.html
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20071211114255/http://particleghost.blogspot.com/2007/03/hello-world.html
  • https://www.gamesradar.com/3d-realms-big-announcement-imminent/
  • https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/q-a-under-the-radar-with-raphael-van-lierop
  • https://www.gamedeveloper.com/game-platforms/q-a-3d-realms-van-lierop-talks-new-projects-i-duke-i-
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20240106232237/forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=27184
  • https://www.shacknews.com/article/47374/3d-realms-interview
• https://www.shacknews.com/article/52955/updated-duke-nukem-forever-trailer
• Response to footage that was featured on Jace Hall Show
• legacy.duke4.net/news.php?extend.123.2
• https://web.archive.org/web/20070426031724/http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showpost.php?p=510945&postcount=63
• https://twitter.com/georgebsocial/status/1066014339
• https://web.archive.org/web/20071220130910/http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29629
• https://www.ign.com/articles/2007/03/15/insider-interview-with-composer-jeremy-soule
• Scott Maclean on his website.

Well, my run with Ritual Entertainment has come to a close. After almost two years with the company, I've decided to accept an offer from another company here in Dallas. Starting tomorrow, I'll be a Level Designer at 3d Realms. I'm looking forward to joining the team there, I already have some friends over there and I'm really itching to have some serious work to do again.

Leaving Ritual was not an easy decision. I have a lot of friends at Ritual, and have a ton of respect for the game developers that work there. There have been some changes at the company recently - that I can't comment on yet - and those changes were what ultimately made 3d Realms a better fit for what I wanted to do. I wish everyone at Ritual the very best, and look forward to seeing their success with the new direction they're moving in.

• George Broussard made an account on Twitter in March 2008 (https://twitter.com/georgebsocial), he made various small updates during 2008 that should probably go here.
• Joe Seigler discussing the hiring of Brian Hook in 2008.

3D Realms News Posts

• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2007/06/earth_no_more.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2007/09/duke_nukem_is_master_chie.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/02/duke_on_hddvd.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/03/radar_group_announced.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/04/duke_nukem_forever_screenshot.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/04/shacknews_and_duke_nukem.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/04/wanted_for_pigslaughter.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/06/jace_hall_show_and_dnf.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/06/jason_hall_show_blooper_r.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/06/dnf_footage_in_high_def.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/09/two_new_dnf_screenshots.html
• http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/09/duke_nukem_forever_screen.html