Posted March 02, 2018
high rated
Remember that decade and a half you spent waiting for Duke Nukem Forever?
Remember how when the game was actually released, it was nothing like that mouth-watering trailer 3D Realms released in 2001?
Remember how you were made to believe that all the material in that early trailer was staged and the only Duke Forever that ever actually existed was the insufferable pile of suckage that was eventually released?
Well, turns out you've been deceived: That awesome early build DID exist. In fact, it still DOES exist on old hard drives uncovered from the old 3D Realmy archives. And the owners (the new Danish 3D Realms) say it's 80% ready and want to finish it FREE OF CHARGE and release it to the public. But Randy Pitchford - current owner of the Duke Nukem IP - isn't having any of it.
Remember how when the game was actually released, it was nothing like that mouth-watering trailer 3D Realms released in 2001?
Remember how you were made to believe that all the material in that early trailer was staged and the only Duke Forever that ever actually existed was the insufferable pile of suckage that was eventually released?
Well, turns out you've been deceived: That awesome early build DID exist. In fact, it still DOES exist on old hard drives uncovered from the old 3D Realmy archives. And the owners (the new Danish 3D Realms) say it's 80% ready and want to finish it FREE OF CHARGE and release it to the public. But Randy Pitchford - current owner of the Duke Nukem IP - isn't having any of it.
The new owners of 3D Realms inherited their company archives including hard drives, server backups, and more and Frederik Schreiber (3D Realms VP/Slipgate Studios head) went through all this content and discovered various builds of the game from every year of development.
Frederik Schreiber claims that in December 2002 the most completed version of what you saw in the 2001 trailer existed, he has estimated this to be around 80% complete with voice overs, music, scripting, and more all done and completed with large sections of the game being fully playable. The issues at 3D Realms apparently arose in early 2003 when they decided to put a Doom 3 style renderer in to the game which resulted in all the levels turning black and textures having to be recreated with normal maps as the game had been created up to that point (from late 1998 - early 2003, it was almost complete at this stage) with Unreal Engine static lighting in mind.
I lurk on the 3D Realms and Duke4.net Discords and in chat this is some of what Frederik has had to say about those versions of the game, keep in mind some of this is out of context - to see the full context you should join the Duke4.net Discord and search through the chat history: https://discord.gg/qccgJ9v
>1999 - 2002
-This is the famous "2001" version.
-This was 90% completed. Id say 14-16 hours of gameplay.
-It was way darker and more serious than the final product. It also played partly as an RPG in terms of your goals.
-You basically had Mission Objectives on your HUD you could activate - Like quests. You also had an inventory with ID badges, keycards, etc. Things you would use in the world. Think Deus Ex Duke.
-You meet and save NPCs. Solve puzzles, and try and solve the mystery of what's going on.
-Then you meet the infected EDF who's attacking you. And the story evolves from there.
-But all very dark, cinematic. Lights going out, flickering in the distance. Moster closets etc. all with cinematic music to fit. Screams in the distance etc.
-VERY serious and dark.
-Nothing campy or slapstick at all. It feels like a horror game
-It's always raining, lighting strikes in the distance, rumbling thunder
-The bike is probably the most impressive. !z2_l1 you get the bike and the game turns half open world
Hub style
-So you can drive out of vegas, and you get a loading screen. Different parts of vegas also has loading screens in between. But you get these missions from NPCs and then solve them (a bit like deus ex)
-Oh.. there's also a subway in vegas you can take to visit different districts in the city.
-It's super fun in multiplayer. 12 maps are pretty much done.
-Specific for Dukematch.
-25 ish levels.
-!z1_l1 to !z5_l7
Frederik also provided proof of his claims by posting a screenshot of the directory of one of the builds:
But here's the fun part of the story - despite Frederik Schreiber offering to prepare these builds for release for free as well as an additional offer to prepare the mod tools for the final version of the game for release for free (they're much demanded by the fan community) as they have access to all of that material Randy Pitchford isn't interested. He claims that they would still have to pay "certification costs" somehow ignoring all the other companies that have released builds and content for free in the past like Croteam, id Software, 3D Realms, Volition, and more. Further more he has said that the only way he would ever release this material is if he could charge for it in some kind of Duke Nukem collection...he has also said the same about various Duke Nukem 3D prototypes... There have been a few tweets and various social media happenings that have picked up steam that Randy simply ignores: https://twitter.com/juanlurve/status/904916534455222272
It's a terrible situation but about what you would expect from Randy Pitchford. Even with an offer to do all the work for free he avoids putting in any time or effort to allow it.
Frederik Schreiber claims that in December 2002 the most completed version of what you saw in the 2001 trailer existed, he has estimated this to be around 80% complete with voice overs, music, scripting, and more all done and completed with large sections of the game being fully playable. The issues at 3D Realms apparently arose in early 2003 when they decided to put a Doom 3 style renderer in to the game which resulted in all the levels turning black and textures having to be recreated with normal maps as the game had been created up to that point (from late 1998 - early 2003, it was almost complete at this stage) with Unreal Engine static lighting in mind.
I lurk on the 3D Realms and Duke4.net Discords and in chat this is some of what Frederik has had to say about those versions of the game, keep in mind some of this is out of context - to see the full context you should join the Duke4.net Discord and search through the chat history: https://discord.gg/qccgJ9v
>1999 - 2002
-This is the famous "2001" version.
-This was 90% completed. Id say 14-16 hours of gameplay.
-It was way darker and more serious than the final product. It also played partly as an RPG in terms of your goals.
-You basically had Mission Objectives on your HUD you could activate - Like quests. You also had an inventory with ID badges, keycards, etc. Things you would use in the world. Think Deus Ex Duke.
-You meet and save NPCs. Solve puzzles, and try and solve the mystery of what's going on.
-Then you meet the infected EDF who's attacking you. And the story evolves from there.
-But all very dark, cinematic. Lights going out, flickering in the distance. Moster closets etc. all with cinematic music to fit. Screams in the distance etc.
-VERY serious and dark.
-Nothing campy or slapstick at all. It feels like a horror game
-It's always raining, lighting strikes in the distance, rumbling thunder
-The bike is probably the most impressive. !z2_l1 you get the bike and the game turns half open world
Hub style
-So you can drive out of vegas, and you get a loading screen. Different parts of vegas also has loading screens in between. But you get these missions from NPCs and then solve them (a bit like deus ex)
-Oh.. there's also a subway in vegas you can take to visit different districts in the city.
-It's super fun in multiplayer. 12 maps are pretty much done.
-Specific for Dukematch.
-25 ish levels.
-!z1_l1 to !z5_l7
Frederik also provided proof of his claims by posting a screenshot of the directory of one of the builds:
But here's the fun part of the story - despite Frederik Schreiber offering to prepare these builds for release for free as well as an additional offer to prepare the mod tools for the final version of the game for release for free (they're much demanded by the fan community) as they have access to all of that material Randy Pitchford isn't interested. He claims that they would still have to pay "certification costs" somehow ignoring all the other companies that have released builds and content for free in the past like Croteam, id Software, 3D Realms, Volition, and more. Further more he has said that the only way he would ever release this material is if he could charge for it in some kind of Duke Nukem collection...he has also said the same about various Duke Nukem 3D prototypes... There have been a few tweets and various social media happenings that have picked up steam that Randy simply ignores: https://twitter.com/juanlurve/status/904916534455222272
It's a terrible situation but about what you would expect from Randy Pitchford. Even with an offer to do all the work for free he avoids putting in any time or effort to allow it.
As far as growing any awareness for this content existing and the offers to prepare it all for release I think a big roadblock is the reputation Duke Nukem has under Gearbox and Duke Nukem Forever being not a particularly good game - it's hard to believe something good existed at one stage and most people now associate the entire franchise with Duke Nukem Forever (2011). I would encourage people who have interest in this content to contact Randy Pitchford through Twitter or another means, retweet and comment on Tweets such as this one : https://twitter.com/Unseen64/status/910836805850845184 and let people know that something good existed at one point and the biggest thing holding it back is Randy Pitchford.
Source Check out some of the following posts by TonyTiger for some additional information.
