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Duke Nukem Forever ('''DNF''') is a yet-to-be-released First-person Shooter Video Game being developed by 3D Realms , and is the next game in the popular Duke Nukem series. It is notorious for its protracted development, which has been ongoing since 1997. PLOT Although two Teaser Trailer s and a series of screenshots have been released, the game's plot remains only vaguely defined, as most of the publicity is now out of date. Fans speculate that Doctor Proton , Duke's original nemesis, will return. Originally it was planned that Duke would be teamed with a female sidekick named Bombshell, who appeared in a 1998 trailer for the game. However, she did not appear in a later trailer released in 2001, and it has yet to be confirmed if she still plays a role in the developer's plans. INFAMY FOR DELAY ''Duke Nukem Forever'' was officially announced on '' engine. Many now consider the game to be Vaporware . Indeed, that the intended release date was 1998. The game has been jokingly referred to in gaming circles as ''Duke Nukem Whatever'', ''Duke Nukem If Ever'', ''Duke Nukem Coming Out Never'', ''Duke Nukem Taking Forever'', ''Duke Nukem Never'', ''Duke Nukem Fornever'', ''Duke Nukem Forever Wait'', ''Duke Nukem Forever in Development'', and others. Another source of humor is the common abbreviation DNF for both ''Duke Nukem Forever'' and the sports term "Did Not Finish", which indicates a competitor who was unable to complete a race. It has often been said that the game is stuck in Development Hell . Many speculate that this title will never see the light of day, although the developers continue to insist that it will ship "when it's done." Rumors in April 2005 suggested that the game might appear at the 2005 E3 , along with 3D Realms' previously cancelled '' Prey '', but while Prey was, in fact, at the show, the rumors of DNF's appearance turned out to be false. [http://pc.ign.com/articles/617/617251p1.html Internet Forum comments made by lead designer George Broussard in 2004 suggested that development was progressing reasonably well, even though he later said that almost all of the previous generation of game content had been scrapped as of early 2003. 3D Realms cites several factors which have contributed to the game's late release. They primarily blame the delays on several project "restarts" (starting the project from scratch), as well as engine changes, in order to take account of the swiftly advancing pace of home computer development. These engine changes, they say, demand that content (art, levels, animations) must be reworked as well to keep up with the new possibilities the updated engines offer. They also lay some early blame on attempting multiple in-house projects, which split internal focus too much for such a small developer. 3D Realms also claims that they have been short on manpower (especially in programming), which has slowed the development process. Some gamers have reacted to the "quality justification" with a great deal of skepticism. They show examples of games with a much shorter development time which have been commercial and critical successes ('''' and such historical 8-bit titles as Mike Singleton 's '' Eye Of The Moon '' and Ultimate 's '' Mire Mare '', both of which were eventually cancelled). On September 14 2004 , 3D Realms announced that they have replaced the Karma physics engine with one designed by Swedish developer Meqon Several sites have also speculated that ''DNF'' will be using [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=7322 the latest generation of this technology, designed for next-gen consoles. 3D Realms has also announced that DNF will likely use a Steam -like delivery system known as Games XStream in addition to traditional distribution. Because a great deal of fan arguments occur over the topic of ''DNF'' Competing game company Croteam took several less-than-subtle jabs at the game in its own '' Serious Sam II '', which mentions a "blondie guy" who was chosen before Sam but since they had been "waiting forever" for him, Sam was chosen to be the hero instead. Engine changes and restarts The game has undergone at least one complete change to its , which were later replaced anyway. 3D Realms continued to receive updates from Epic for their newly licensed engine, and in 2000 they moved to the '' Unreal Engine 1.5 '' technology branch. However, in mid 2001 they cut themselves off entirely from Epic and went their own way {Link without Title} . 2002 marked the start of what is widely considered to be the second project restart. After hiring several new programmers, the team completely re-wrote the renderer and other game engine modules, beginning work on a new generation of game content. Broussard estimates that around 95% of the previous Level Design work has since been scrapped. The engine (now based on Unreal Engine 2.0 ) is for the first time supposedly complete, and supporting such features as Pixel Shading , Normal Mapping and High Dynamic Range based lighting. George Broussard has stated several times that the only parts of the Unreal engine that are still part of their code base are UnrealScript , the networking code, and the UnrealEd . Everything else, except Meqon , which is the Physics Engine , has been written from scratch by 3D Realms. The principal technical reason given by Broussard for the extensive delays was the unstable tech base. Now that this problem seems to have been solved, 3DR have expanded their team considerably, from 22 to 31 members, marking what many hope to be the final stage of the development cycle. When a major game comes out, it is humorously suggested in many fan circles that ''Duke Nukem Forever'' will be switching to the renderer of that recently released game. CONFLICTS WITH TAKE TWO There has been a degree of tension between 3D Realms, the game's developers, and that "Take Two needs to STFU imo"—Internet parlance for "Take Two needs to shut the fuck up, in my opinion." {Link without Title} Later in the year, December 18 2003 , an article from GameSpot revealed that Jeffrey Lapin had a recent conversation with 3D Realms. Discussing a revised released date with the developers, he was told that ''Duke Nukem Forever'' was expected to be finished by the end of 2004, or the beginning of 2005. {Link without Title} 3D Realms' CEO became infuriated with Jeffrey Lapin for releasing confidential information regarding ''Duke Nukem Forever'', and had neither denied nor confirmed the information that Jeffrey Lapin revealed. On September 9 2004 , GameSpot published a conversation between Take Two CEO Rich Roedel and UBS analyst Mike Wallace which alleged that ''Duke Nukem Forever'' had switched to the '' Doom 3 '' engine. Many gaming news sites mailed George Broussard to have him confirm or deny the rumor, but after receiving no answer from him, they published the rumor as fact, ending the article with "Attempts to contact 3D Realms for comment were unsuccessful as of press time." Later that day, George Broussard explicitly denied the rumor and explained that he was not able to answer the emails only because he was working elsewhere in the building. As of May 2005, it is believed that Rich Roedel had mistaken ''DNF'' for '' Prey '', which Human Head (supervised by 3D Realms) is developing with the ''Doom 3'' engine. Fans speculate that the strained relationship between 3D Realms and Take Two Interactive is based on the fact that the success of earlier ''Duke Nukem'' games, along with proceeds from the wildly successful '''' in 2002. 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller denies that relations have been strained at all. {Link without Title} DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE 1997
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Broussard also demonstrated samples of the game, including an early level, a vehicle sequence, and a few test rooms '' {Link without Title} EXTERNAL LINKS
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