DukeWatch

New DLC Announcement: The Doctor Who Cloned Me

2011-12-09T14:36:00.001-08:00

Press release (Source):

" A brand new downloadable add-on is coming to Duke Nukem Forever next Tuesday, December 13, delivering a new single-player campaign, new multiplayer maps and more!

Titled The Doctor Who Cloned Me, the new campaign pits Duke against Dr. Proton deep in the heart of Area 51. Alongside new enemies and bosses, the add-on packs new weapons and new interactive objects across the new environments, plus new achievements and trophies.

Four new multiplayer maps are also included, which can be played across all of the multiplayer modes including those of the Hail to the Icons Parody Pack:

Sky-High: The alien-infested corporate offices of Pooty, Inc. near the center of Las Vegas. This map includes three indoor floors taken over by the aliens and two rooftops, jump pads, stairwells, and building-to-building combat.
Command: EDF command center with an imprisoned BattleLord at its core! A two-level map featuring winding stairs, straightaway corridors, and jump pads
Drop Zone: Rooftop of Duke’s Lady Killer Casino featuring indoor and outdoor combat and stairwells for platforming, an EDF dropship on landing pad, and a bottomless pit.
Biohazard: Fight in the Breston Plant Nuclear Power facilities and compete across multiple floors in locker rooms, restrooms with showers, control rooms, and the nuclear waste storage room.

Releasing Tuesday, December 13, Duke Nukem Forever: The Doctor Who Cloned Me will be available on PC and PlayStation 3 for $9.99, and Xbox 360 for 800 Microsoft Points. For more details, check out the official site: http://www.dukenukemforever.com/drwhoclonedme "

"Report – Gearbox to reboot Duke Nukem after Colonial Marines wraps"

2011-08-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

Gearbox is reportedly set to reboot Duke Nukem after development on Aliens: Colonial Marines ends, according to the same OXM rumour wrap that cited Fable IV for a 2013 release this morning. The reboot will come with Duke Begins, the project that Gearbox was working on before taking over development on Forever after being in dev hell for 15 years. After announcing it took over development on DNF, the Texan developer said it had became the rights holders of the IP. Via CVG.

Source: http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/22/report-gearbox-to-reboot-duke-nukem-after-colonial-marines-wraps/

First DLC and patch news announced!

2011-07-28T15:16:00.000-07:00

New maps and modes are coming to Duke Nukem Forever in the Hail to the Icons Parody Pack! Arriving on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC this Fall, the add-on packs four new multiplayer maps (each with a new weapon) and three new multiplayer modes, and will be FREE to all First Access Club members who registered their FAC membership before Duke Nukem Forever launched in their country (subject to availability).

The Parody Pack includes:

• Three All-New Modes – Freeze Tag provides some of the most fun team gameplay in Duke Nukem Forever. Players cooperate to freeze and shatter their opponents in succession for huge point streaks and combos. See who can hold on to the babe the longest in Hot Potato and play free-for-all Duke style in Hail to the King.

Call of Duke – Duke engages in modern combat in a war-torn city. Foes don’t stand a chance against the Duke when he spams the map with the N00b T00b.
Sandbox – Players take the role of mini-Duke in a giant sandbox with two bases at either end made out of children’s toys. This map features Sticky Bombs.
Inferno – Time machine engage! Duke does combat in a hellish landscape of lava and teleporters. Who turned on the 16-bit graphics, and more importantly, where did this DFG come from?
2Forts1Bridge – Hats? Duke doesn’t need no stinking hats. Give him a minigun and he’ll beat off all comers.

Don’t want to wait to get your hands on the new content? You’re in luck! 2K will be hosting Multiplayer Dukematches at their headquarters in Novato, California on Thursday, August 4. For details on how to register for your chance to attend, visit the 2K Blog

Hail to the King, baby!

Source

The development team has been hard at work combing through the feedback provided here and elsewhere, with updates based on this feedback currently in the works for all three platforms.

Among the changes coming to PC are a new expanded inventory option that allows you to carry up to four weapons in the single-player campaign, Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC) support, push-to-talk voice chat, the ability to adjust FOV plus other fixes and improvements that are still being tested.

We’ll be sharing more details about the updates, including those coming to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, as they’re finalized. Thanks again for your support!

Source

Duke Nukem History of a Legend part 4

2011-07-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

The fourth part of the History of a Legend series has been released!

Watch here

If you missed the older parts look for it here, here, and here.

If you wonder why I was soquite in the last weeks, the reason is that I had and still have a lot on my mind!
I can't wait for the upcoming DNF DLC's though! :)

Lets hope Gearbox delivers also on the patch side soon, its about time!

Zelnick: `You will see future Duke IP` at Take Two

2011-06-21T03:41:00.000-07:00

Take Two president Strauss Zelnick has said in a Forbes interview that more Duke Nukem will be coming from the publisher in the future.

“We don’t really talk about it in detail but you will see future Duke IP coming from this company,” he said in the chat.

Zelnick got a little more vague after that, though.

“Part of it is the economic opportunities that interact with entertainment are so huge. Part of it is that we are very creative folks in control. Part of it is we don’t want to ever be in the position of dumping something down just to make another buck,” he added.

“If we can take some of our intellectual property and bring it to another medium in an extraordinary high quality way, that delights consumers and represents an interesting commercial opportunity for us, we will. We have certainly considered doing that with BioShock and with other titles. So far we haven’t brought anything to market, but stay tuned.”

Take Two had the publishing rights for Duke Nukem Forever, released nearly two weeks ago after 14 years in development, through 2K Games.

However, it does not own the IP. That honor belongs to Gearbox, who announced at PAX last year it had bought the rights to Duke from 3D Realms.

Thanks VG247.

Well thanks Duke4.net. :)
http://www.duke4.net/news.php?extend.514.5

PC Action DNF BETA-REVIEW

2011-06-09T08:14:00.000-07:00

Enjoy, though its german. :P

DNF is arriving!

2011-06-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

If you have pre ordered the game via steam directly you can already preload the game. It's about 7 GB big and already on some fans hard drives. WOW you can say you already have the game. 2 more days and all people in Europe can play it. It's here guys..after all these years! :)

I will go dark very soon. But I will keep on updating dukewatch as soon as I experienced the game in it's fullness!

Let's rock!

IGN gives DNF a 9.5??????

2011-06-05T05:50:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: IT's FAKE!!!
IGN rates DNF with a 9.5 out of 10?!

Either this is fake or freaking IGN has turned upside down!

9.5 HOLY MOTHER OF BUDDHA!!!!

Demo released, Pregnator concept art, and home stretch podcast

2011-06-04T02:50:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already played the demo get it on steam with your FAC code. 2K also released concept art of the pregnator alien. And finally there is a new podcast waiting for you.

PODCAST SEVEN: THE HOME STRETCH

Download audio

May 20, 2011

ELIZABETH: Welcome to the seventh episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. I’m Elizabeth Tobey, and today I’m talking with Randy, David, Allen, Kristen, and Chris again. We’re discussing what I like to call the “home stretch” – not too long from now, you’ll all be playing Duke Nukem Forever, and these guys are the ones who brought it back to life.

RANDY: I’m Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox Software.

DAVID: This is David Riegel, I’m President of Triptych.

ALLEN: This is Allen Blum, I work at Triptych as a Level Designer.

KRISTEN: I’m Kristen Haglund and I’m Triptych’s Managing Partner.

ELIZABETH: This game has been in development for over a decade. Can you talk a little bit about the early days; bring us back to that world when Duke Nukem Forever was just fledgling in your minds? And then go and talk about the development cycle through to today.

ALLEN: Well really the whole thought was just to get Duke into a location that Duke would go to, so of course: Vegas. Everything from that point on revolved around Vegas; what would happen, where would Duke go, what areas would be cool to play in? You’d want to go to a strip club, a casino and eventually you’d go to to Hoover Dam, stuff like that.

RANDY: I remember back when we were working together, like when we shipped the Atomic edition? I don’t even remember there being a debate. It was just like of course there’s going to be a sequel and we just kept doing stuff. And Al was tinkering with the build engine and there were some things that were going on that Ken Silverman did to the engine to allow voxels; to add voxels to the engine and some things some guys had done to allow us to fake 3D with room over room and stuff. And everybody just kept doing stuff. Like Allen started building maps in a kind of upgraded Build engine, I remember Brian just started making weapons and crap with voxels. And then I remember one day George just showed up and “Oh I licensed Quake” and we were like, alright, and handed us the disk.

ALLEN: It’s hard to even remember back that far; but yeah like the voxel thing and room over room stuff.

RANDY: Yeah, there was some cool stuff you were doing.

ALLEN: Yeah, with Build it was actually programs and stuff. The room over room stuff they eventually used for Shadow Warrior, which was was interesting.

RANDY: Right, it was really cool. It allowed us to fake 3D back when everything was just 2½D. But it’s like weird, in my memory we’re all just sitting around making stuff, and yeah of course there’s another Duke game. I remember though…remember when Keith joined the company and he had that 2D side scroller with the 4; Duke 4Ever? And we like, “Yeah that title is really clever.”

ALLEN: Yeah, George liked the 4. I thought it was cheesy…so cheesy.

ELIZABETH: So let’s skip in time to 2001 when that famous trailer happened. Can you talk about created that trailer and what the time period for the game really like? What shape was the game in?

ALLEN: Back then the game was in really good shape. We had a lot of maps, there was a lot of game you could play through. It was definitely a highlight of everything we had at that point. Work still needed to be done past that, obviously. So everything in that trailer; there’s a lot of good stuff. Mostly a lot of concepts. There was that one scene when you’re driving down the street and that big army ant or whatever was chasing you. We had just recently got that in at the time so we had a horrible animation of him kind of patting his head ant-style that was kind of weird. But as far as the state of the game, we had a lot of content but most of the stuff needed a lot of polish.

CHRIS: That was and correct me if I’m wrong, but that was one of the only times that Bombshell actually appeared.

RANDY: No the 2001 trailer didn’t have Bombshell. I think that was the earlier one with the Quake engine. She like ran up a ramp into the back of a dropship. But that animation, she was like this…

ALLEN: Yeah, she had arms straight out.

ELIZABETH: For all of you listening, that was an amazing stiff-arm animation by Randy.

ELIZABETH: So skipping forward in time, when 3DR closed, what was the state then, with the game?

KRISTEN: David talked about it a little earlier, relevant to Duke and bringing Duke back to life, there was no narrative, there was no story; there was nothing. There was no ending. There was sort of this planned general idea of how the game was supposed to end; we had a bunch of levels that looked great, but there was nothing to move you between them. So in terms of bringing Duke back to life, one of the major components was we have to have a story, we have to have dialogue, we have to get all of this in and then we have to do all the animation and mo-cap to support that, get the head tracking, get the eye tracking and actually tell the story. We’ve got all the guts and all the pieces but we don’t have anything to make it compelling beyond, “Ooh, I just blew it up and that’s cool; but why did I blow it up?” So we got started on that right away. We started July 9th, that was our first day and I think we flew Valeta (Wensloff) in I think July 13th and that was like instantly we were like: we gotta do that. Because there’s everything that goes along with that, the lip syncing, the mocap and everything has to go with it and so that’s gotta get done.

DAVID: We took over the game July 9th officially and at that point it was really about coming up with a schedule to complete the game in a very short amount of time--in terms of content. We didn’t have the staff at that time to do console ports or multiplayer but the goal that Triptych originally had when we took the game was to finish the content for single-player. And so we had we had a very strict schedule to get the narrative done, get the voice acting recorded, get the NPC behavior done, just a whole list of things we needed to really tie the game together at that point. Because the game was really fun and had all the basic game play and we wanted to make sure that all the ground work from 3D Realms was intact and it’s still intact today. Most of the game is really the 3D Realms version of the game, but we had those very specific challenges to get it done and to tie everything together.

So as Kristen kind of alluded to, one of the fun facts about the game is that the narrative is actually written primarily by two women. Valeta Wensloff and Kristen herself and by myself and some of the rest of the team members too. So that’s really kind of a fun fact.

KRISTEN: Yeah, Valeta and I had never met before. She was someone David knew from a previous project and she came down and helped us out. A lot of the heavy lifting on the writing was done by her and she’s fabulous. Then, David and I, she flew back and we did a lot of the tweaking of the dialogue and what not and then once that was in place, we did two playthroughs as I remember, in our living room with like 10 people in our living room and our flat screen. Randy has seen our fabulous demo room.

We did two play throughs and everybody just threw out these ideas for these one liners and there were some pretty epic one liners that were born from that mad---we gotta have some funny stuff here what with NPCs and what not. I don’t think it was the tradition writing process with a bunch of people sitting around the….I wonder how people will react to know that this Duke was written by two Duke fans who are also, well, there was of course David, but primarily by two Duke fans who were women. I don’t think anyone has picked up on the changes in Duke. He’s as bad as ever in the demos.

DAVID: We had a lot of great lines that are traditional Duke lines that come from George, Scott and Al that …

KRISTEN: Didn’t you maintain a list of them? Like there was a list, a collection of them.

DAVID: Yeah there were the old lines and then we had a lot of great lines from Al and from the guys on the team and a lot of small revisions that have happened in the past few months. Like here at Gearbox some of the stuff that’s come out of PAX and the lines that have kind of come to the forefront that have been driven by trailers and marketing and all these other things, when we present the game to the public, so the writing at this point I think is very polished and I think that everybody is really happy with it.

CHRIS: Randy can you talk about what it was like, from your perspective, to be sitting in that room in David’s house with everyone else, watching the playthrough?

RANDY: It was just as Kristen described, there was amazing stuff but like the spare pieces. It was always cool, but there was like this level and that level and I got the sense, when I finally visited these guys at their house, that they had actually done it: they wired it all up and they connected it together.

And it’s such a great experience and the whole world…anyone who plays this game and loves it owes you guys a lot; and should feel that gratitude for that commitment because I know how hard it is. I remember when we started Gearbox and a very similar kind of thing---there were just 8 or 10 of us. My wife was pregnant. She wrote, my wife wrote the story to Opposing Force and wrote all that…

KRISTEN: Oh awesome.

RANDY: I mean she was pregnant with our first kid and she’d sleep on the floor in my office and take naps in the middle of the day and we’d work until midnight. Because it’s just such an inspiring thing and so much great stuff comes from it, when you’re that deep and that in it. You don’t even think about anything else but making sure you can pull it off.

KRISTEN: Yeah well nobody told us we couldn’t do it …except everyone around us!

DAVID: The whole world.

KRISTEN: The whole world.

DAVID: The whole world thought we were nuts and I don’t take it personally because even my Mom and my Dad didn’t believe we could do it.

KRISTEN: Yeah, his parents would call us and say, “What are you doing? You need to buy real estate” and our friends thought we were crazy. Our house was covered in tape; we had desks everywhere and had to rewire stuff so we could like distribute all of the computers.

DAVID: It was crazy, but it was a fun time. Al and one of our other guys, Ben I think would get there sometime between 8-9 in the morning and then we’d have a couple guys like our contractors who would work their day jobs and not leave until 11-11:30 at night for those 6 or 7 months it was nuts.

KRISTEN: And our cats got used to them and would wait for them at the door. They would get stressed and play with the cat on the floor with the feather thing. It was definitely crazy.

DAVID: But it was great. We had a really good feeling at the end, when everything was coming together. We didn’t have a real distribution plan. We talked to Scott and George a little bit and had some crazy ideas about how to get the game out there. We were grateful at the end that we could work with Gearbox and the game could really be presented to the public the way that it deserves to be presented.

KRISTEN: Because we had some crazy ideas about boxing it up old-school style and selling it like that. I mean, we’re talking really…and everyone was like, “All right!”

RANDY: Duke Nukem Forever: Bootleg Edition.

KRISTEN: Yeah! And the thing about it was that was amazing was we were coming up with these crazy ideas and we did our own trailer because we didn’t know at that point…

DAVID: We didn’t know the extent of Gearbox’s involvement…

KRISTEN: We didn’t know any of this was coming so there was a trailer that we did that was pretty awesome, I think….

DAVID: It’s in the Extras on the game, so people will get to see that.

KRISTEN: I think the thing that was amazing was we were coming up with these crazy ideas because a lot of angles were closing as to how we were going to get this thing to market. And whatever ideas we were coming up with the entire team was like, “All right. Let’s do that!”

RANDY: Whatever it takes!

KRISTEN: One of the crazier ideas was we were going to put a web cam in the 3DR offices showing the Triptych team like boxing up the game and sending it out. Like pay $5 and the Triptych team member of your choice will sign the box. We figured Mica and Al---Mica being our cat---would be the most popular. But we just had….and nobody flinched, which was really I think a testament at how amazing the Triptych team is.

ALLEN: Well what’s interesting is history repeats itself, because that’s basically how Duke 3D was. It was a garage band, just doing it, getting it all going, putting it together and when it was all done we were packing boxes.

KRISTEN: Yeah, well I think that’s where the idea came from was that you told us that’s how you did it. We were like, “We could do that.”

ALLEN: Yeah, direct sales back then. It eventually made it into the stores and all that but a lot of the direct sales were there in the office, packing…

RANDY: Just picture Allen, and like Doug and Dirk, like Richard and those guys, Todd and like they’re done with the final build and they’re taking manuals and disks and folding the cardboard and putting them in. Just imagine that; picture that.

KRISTEN: I want to tell you I was grateful when you came along because I was like “I’m going to starting having to call UPS to set up deliveries”. So thank you. Thank you for coming along, because our plan was not a very good plan.

RANDY: Well fortunately, when you have a world class partner helping you — publishing partner, that really knows how to market and distribute the game worldwide, it changes everything. And now your work, what you created can reach millions of people. And that’s really exciting.

KRISTEN: I think it’s a much, much better alternative than us and the ….

RANDY: Logistics is actually a limiting factor.

KRISTEN: It is. We actually did the math on it and we were, “Oh this is not going to be…”

RANDY: Just think how many boxes you can pack…

KRISTEN: Yes we were like, “All right, we’ll pack this many boxes in an hour and I’ll have the UPS guys coming in every 6….and this is not going to work.

ELIZABETH: So I guess that brings us to the last question and chapter which is how Duke Nukem Forever came to the home of Gearbox, how many people do you think overall worked on the game and how many are working on it now?

KRISTEN: I don’t know how long the credits list is right now.

RANDY: Right now there’s probably close to right around 100 people that are doing things between the Triptych guys, the Piranha team and all the…we’ve rallied a lot of support from within our technology groups at Gearbox to help land the game. So there’s probably about 100 people involved right now. Overall it would be difficult to hazard a guess; but there’s several credits in the game: Triptych’s credits, Piranha’s credits, and Gearbox’s credits. George and Joe and Scott those guys got together and tried to do the best to create the definitive 3D Realms credits and we have those in the game. We’ve also created a web page which invites people we may not know about. The game’s been in the hands of several publishers and there’s some guys who probably put a lot of effort into thinking about how to market Duke Nukem Forever when it was at, for example, GT Interactive. We’re trying to find out who those people are.

When you think about a game like Duke, and especially for anybody who’s been a part of 3D Realms, you don’t get involved in that thinking like you’re just going ride; kind of jump in and ride something. You get involved because you love it, you want to be a part of it and you want to contribute. And Duke is larger than life so you want to add to that in some way. So for most of people who’ve ever been involved, especially at the development side, most of the people didn’t get to the end zone. It’s just, I think Allen is probably the only one who was there from day one to the closing day. He’s the only one.

ELIZABETH: You win the prize.

ALLEN: I did thethe math and when it finally ships in a month or so, I will have worked 2 years long than anyone else on the project.

CHRIS: Oh wow. That’s incredible.

RANDY: And like who are the second place people? Probably guys like Keith and Stephen Cole and those guys?

ALLEN: Yeah, they were around for a long time, probably 8 years. George had been around…

RANDY: George, of course, to 2009.

ALLEN: Yeah, so I got 2 years over him.

KRISTEN: We’re going to have to throw you a party.

RANDY: Well if you count the time you’ve been like talking on forums, you’ve probably got him beat by a long shot. There’s a lot of George in the game and obviously we wouldn’t have it without him either. George deserves, I mean no one can take anything away from his commitment to this property and to Duke. I’m really thankful that he trusted us. I know it was really hard. I mean there was a time where, you look at the decisions they made, they’d rather burn their own house down than let something bad happen to it. So the fact that George and Scott trusted me and Brian Martel and trusted Gearbox with the brand means a lot to me and it’s my commitment to be worthy of that trust.

CHRIS: How did that come about? How did Duke go from 3D Realms and Triptych to Gearbox?

RANDY: The deal that Triptych and 3D Realms did was one that 3D Realms sort of engaged Triptych to finish the game and there was an incentive there, for Triptych to do that. The deal that 3D Realms and Gearbox did was an acquisition of the property; the game and the brand. That took a while, I mean, that deal we talked about that and negotiated that deal for about 6 months. Finally closed it right at the end of 2009 and then we were able to take these next steps. One of the most odd parts about that from my point of view was that I kind of went into it at the beginning…some of the feelings I had were that story ending, the way like it felt like it was going to end in May of 2009, it was a terrible ending. That’s not a story we should….Duke Nukem was the first commercial game I ever was involved in. So I feel that character is part of my legacy. Part of why I’m a game maker was because I trusted George and Scott and I just wanted to work with Al and those other guys and learn from those guys. And I feel that Duke is part of my legacy too so I didn’t want to…on a personal level, I didn’t want the story to end that way.

So when I parsed the brand and the situation with Duke, it felt like there was a business case to be made; that it was a rational business decision as well. When you think about where it is today, it seems like a much more sane business decision but you can imagine back in that second half of 2009---there’s a lot of people who would look at that and think that that was a terrible business decision. And fortunately, I disagreed and so did Christoph, who once I had completed the acquisition and I went to him and told him what I had accomplished there---Christoph is the President of 2K Games, he was excited. Because what it meant that finally this game that we had all been waiting for, finally this thing that’s supposed to happen, there was a path so it could happen. He got behind it instantly as well. His commitment, belief and faith is the reason why we get to have this as well.

CHRIS: So last question: Why do you think it survived all these years? How did it survive all these years?

RANDY: It survived because of people like George and Allen and even David and Kristen. Everybody that’s ever gotten involved and believes in it and thinks it’s special and rare and important. And it is. There’s no other entertainment like it. It’s a very weird, interesting, rare, unique mix of things both from the interactive space and storytelling space so it deserves to exist. That’s what I think.

KRISTEN: I think it’s because Duke is both a satire and a stereotype, and yet he is extremely compelling because I think there is a little bit of Duke that lives in everyone. Everybody kind of sort of wants to do what Duke does and wants to be. I’ve said it before, that I think Duke is a very guilty pleasure that we all sort of enjoy indulging just a little bit and I think that it’s because it’s so simple and it just says, hey that’s what it is and you like it and we know it and we’re just going to let you have it. I think that’s why Duke survives and will continue to survive.

RANDY: What do you think Al?

ALLEN: For me personally? After Duke 3D and everybody enjoyed that and everything, the fans just want a sequel. And for me personally, I just want to finish it and give people what they were waiting for. They’ve been waiting for it for too long. When you think of the movies you’ve seen and you’re like, “Oh I can’t wait for the sequel of that” and things happen and it never comes out and it’s just disappointing.

For me personally, working on it from the beginning, I think people deserve that and it’s probably not the right thing for me to do; to devote so much time and energy to it, but I think in the end, it’s worth it.

RANDY: Your commitment to your customers is unparalleled, literally.

ELIZABETH: So Duke is alive today because of you guys. How does that feel?

RANDY: Pretty good. My hope is that the fans love it and my hope is that everyone who ever put any bit of sweat into it feels gratified by the fact that there’s a happy ending to the story.

ELIZABETH: Thanks guys. This concludes the second-to-last episode of this podcast series, at least until the game releases. Thanks for listening.

Gearbox SHOP opens!

2011-06-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

COME GET SOME Merchandise!

http://shop.gearboxsoftware.com/

These are the articles available so far

DNF demo: I can already smell it!

2011-06-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

If you are a FAC member TODAY is the day the demo goes live!!!

WOOT

Duke4.net is on it too!

DNF LAUNCH TRAILER!

2011-06-02T06:07:00.000-07:00

COME GET SOME!

The trailer is fucking awesome, but I miss grabbag :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FV9ZF621uc&feature=share

IT'S DOOOOOONNNNNNEEEEE!

2011-05-24T05:19:00.000-07:00

Source

Press Release:

2K Games and Gearbox Software Announce Duke Nukem Forever® Has “Gone Gold”

Vaporware no more! Gaming’s most legendary hero makes his triumphant return this June

New York, NY – May 24, 2011 – 2K Games and Gearbox Software are proud to announce that Duke Nukem Forever®, one of the most anticipated entertainment properties of all time, has “gone gold” and will be available at retailers on June 10, 2011 internationally and on June 14, 2011 in North America. The road to gold was paved over the course of 15 years and its legendary path climaxes on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system and Windows PC. Gamers who pre-order the title from select outlets will ensure that they are among the first to experience this legendary piece of gaming history when the demo* launches on June 3, 2011 for all platforms, exclusively for Duke Nukem First Access Club Members.

"Duke Nukem Forever is the game that was once thought to be unshipppable, and yet here we are, on the precipice of history,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “Today marks an amazing day in the annals of gaming lore, the day where the legend of Duke Nukem Forever is finally complete and it takes that final step towards becoming a reality.”

Created over the span of 15 years, Duke Nukem Forever was first developed with the intense passion and commitment from an inspired group of dedicated designers, artists and programmers at 3D Realms under the direction of game industry icon, George Broussard.

“Duke Nukem Forever and its journey to store shelves is legendary,” said George Broussard, creative director at 3D Realms. “It's an epic tale of four game development studios that banded together and did the unthinkable and shipped the unshippable. When you play this game you will be reminded of that epic journey at every turn and in every small detail of the game. The character, attitude, interactivity, gameplay and political incorrectness combine to make a Duke Nukem game a unique gaming experience. In the timeless words of Duke Nukem it's finally time to 'Come Get Some'. Come be a part of gaming history.”

In 2009, after many believed that Duke Nukem Forever would never be completed, a small team of intrepid developers, known as Triptych Studios, resurrected the dream. Through their inspiring and steadfast commitment to the game and their exemplary talent and skill, they finally assembled the pieces to create an incredible, epic and cohesive gameplay experience. Under the production of Gearbox Software, Triptych Studios, Piranha Games and many other contributors joined together in a heroic effort to complete the long awaited game as a polished, full-featured triple-A title.

"Always bet on Duke, I did," said Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software. "I bet on all of the developers who have ever been a part of this legendary project and I bet that none of us want to live in a world without the Duke. I've played the final game and it is an incredible experience - a once-in-a-lifetime opus of interactive entertainment that reminds me once again why Duke Nukem is our King. The developers of Duke Nukem Forever at 3D Realms, Triptych, Piranha and finally at Gearbox deserve our thanks and respect for never giving up and have truly shown us that they have balls of steel!"

Strictly for the biggest Duke Nukem fans, the First Access Club grants members exclusive access to the pre-release demo on June 3, 2011 so that they are amongst the first to experience gaming history in the making. There are multiple ways fans can join the exclusive First Access Club, by pre-ordering the game from select retailers or by purchasing the Borderlands Game of the Year Edition on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 system and Windows PC.

True Duke Nukem die-hards will want to get their hands on the Duke Nukem Forever Balls of Steel Edition. This package is spilling over-the-brim with legendary content that is not to be missed by those who want the ultimate experience of this historic arrival. Premium items, such as a Duke Nukem Bust and an art book that chronicles the development of Duke Nukem Forever, flank a package that is overflowing with content. Check out www.dukenukemforever.com/preorder/ to see exactly how much stuff could be crammed into one box.

Apologizing to no one, Duke Nukem Forever is the high-octane video game equivalent of a Hollywood summer blockbuster. Starring the legendary lady killer and alien slayer, Duke Nukem Forever brings gamers back to a blastastic time when games were filled with head-popping, bone-rattling action, brazenly crude humor, impossibly statuesque women dying for affection, and catchy one-liners meant to make you laugh out loud.

Duke Nukem Forever is rated M for Mature by the ESRB. For more information on the game, including where to pre-order, please visit www.dukenukemforever.com.

FINALLY...this moment is history right there!

Guys and Gals it was a wild trip, thank you for walking the walk with me.

Podcast Six: Multiplayer released

2011-05-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

The latest and last podcast heavily spoils multiplayer tactics. Reading these makes me sooo want to play it with some friends!

Download

Transcript:

PODCAST SIX: MULTIPLAYER IN DNF
May 20, 2011
ELIZABETH: Welcome to the sixth episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. I’m Elizabeth Tobey, and today I’m back in Plano with some of the guys from Triptych and Gearbox to talk about multiplayer – from weapons to modes to maps. Before we get started, let’s let the team introduce themselves, and then we’ll get to the meat of this podcast.
JAMES: James Lopez; QA Lead
NICK: Nick Wilson; Central FX at Gearbox
BRAD: Brad Jacobs; Level Designer at Triptych Games
ANDREW: Andrew Baker; Level Designer at Triptych Games
ELIZABETH: So today we’re talking about multiplayer in Duke Nukem Forever which I know is going to be a huge topic for the fans; everybody loves multiplayer. Can you talk about how multiplayer came about in Duke Nukem Forever?
ANDREW: Well the multiplayer had always existed. It was always planned, even when we were incredibly single player focused and working entirely only on the single player game back in the 3D Realms days, multiplayer was always functional, it always existed. But it wasn’t until this last year or so that a lot of it became finalized. And we started off with bringing back that basic multiplayer functionality up to speed a little bit. Triptych’s lead programmer, Rob [Faison], went in and did some quick clean-up for it and we started putting together some test maps. I remember Brad made the first couple of test maps.
BRAD: Yeah.
ANDREW: And we just started playing those and even with all the incredible glitches, complete craziness and sometimes non-functional things that would happen when you’re dealing with a very, very beta thing—we were having a blast.
BRAD: Yeah, it was fun right off the bat.
ANDREW: So we were really excited when we got Piranha [Games] to finish it and bring it to completion.
JAMES: Yeah that’s something that when Gearbox got involved and we were looking at all the design documents and the idea of what is this game supposed to be; when we got to the multiplayer portion of it everything was about attitude and faithfulness to the brand. Does this “feel” Duke? Does this feel like this is unique to Duke? It was never about matching what anybody else was doing; it was always about “does this fit with the single player?” “Does this fit with the idea of what a Duke multiplayer should be?” I’ve been on the project for about a year, and we’ve been looking at multiplayer on a daily basis and it’s still fun to pick up the control. And that’s something that’s really unique, because there are people that work on so many different games where they don’t like what they’re working on, because it burns you out looking at it every day. But we still have a lot of fun. We’re always just teasing each other, like “Aw in your face” or “No, you can’t get me if you’re shrunk, can you?” So it’s still a lot of fun and all very Duke appropriate.
ELIZABETH: We’ll talk a little bit before we get into game play, modes and maps about the people making multiplayer. Who are the studios, who are the minds, who are the brains and what are they doing?
BRAD: Well after we got our rough multiplayer stuff going, Piranha came along and was hired by Gearbox to do the multiplayer portion of the game and they really grabbed that by the horns and took it in a really good direction. I think one of the most satisfying things for me was working on single player and we would take breaks to play multiplayer and see how it was progressing. We designed a couple of maps, the layouts for a few maps and to play that and see “Oh I’m unlocking something, I’m getting experience, I’m getting these in” to find ourselves addicted to our own game, even though we didn’t design that from the ground up. That whole system was Piranha, so that was very assuring to us.
ANDREW: Yeah, I remember it was great to play it as new elements of the game came in and became functional in multiplayer, that was really exciting. We tried to help them with environments. We worked on a couple of maps to bolster their maps, their group of maps and then handed them off to them when they got to a certain point where we couldn’t continue anymore; we had to go back to single player. And they’ve done a great job. They took all those maps and made them their own. I think people are really going to like it. It uses a ton of elements from the single player game I think in a way that people are going to find interesting; weapons and other abilities Duke has.
JAMES: I play a lot of multiplayer games and I always get kind of annoyed when I go to a map I never saw in the single player campaign. I’m like, “I feel no attachment to this. Why do I care about this map,” aside from “Oh this is a sniper map or this is a good grenading map.” You know, everything that you’re in for multiplayer is something that in some form or fashion was in the campaign. So it always has this familiarity to it; it feels like you should be there.
NICK: You’re probably looking for missing features too. There’s always something in the single player that’s not in the multiplayer experience, but that’s not the case in Duke. You have all the same weapons, all the same items, etc.
JAMES: Yeah, that’s a good point.
ELIZABETH: Before we jump ahead to weapons which I know they’re going to be dying to start dissecting, let’s talk about the modes of multiplayer. What are they? What can you do?
JAMES: There are four modes. There’s “Duke Match”, which is a free for all; there is “Team Duke Match”, which is team deathmatch; there is “Hail to the King”, which is a king of the hill mode so there will be a ring that you have to control and you want as many of your people there to defend it because the multiplayer is very brutal. The multiplayer forces you to be active. You can’t just hide in the corner. If you’re hiding in the corner, you’re not contributing. You have to be involved. The other mode is “Capture the Babe” which is a very refreshing take on “Capture the Flag”. You go to the enemies spawn point and you grab their babe and you have to take the babe back to your place and you score a point. She will put her hand in front of your face and you can’t see where you’re going; you can’t see anything. And it’s really good, because during this time you can still defend yourself but it’s with a little small but powerful Derringer which is great. Because even as people are chasing you, they might think they have you and then you one shot them and they’re gone. But you’re very vulnerable during this time because one: you have this giant target on you; and two: you can still be shrunk as you’re carrying this babe and you don’t want that to happen, because she will crush you. So it’s really awesome. It’s very funny and is probably our favorite mode in the testing department.
BRAD: In my opinion why that’s one of the funniest modes too because there’s a lot of opportunity for dialogue. There’s a lot of dialogue in the multiplayer and there’s a lot of multiplayer specific dialogue. So there’s a lot of humor that you’re going to miss out on in the game if you never play multiplayer.
JAMES: You know that’s a great point actually. I haven’t really thought much about but a lot of multiplayer games don’t have dialogue. It’s just on your headset, if you use that at all. But there’s a lot of engagement in multiplayer.
ELIZABETH: So about weapons. What are the weapons and is there anything in multiplayer that’s unique to multiplayer?
JAMES: There is actually one item that’s unique to multiplayer and that’s the jetpack. The jetpack is something that’s not in the single player game. It is an item that you pick up that when you follow the button prompt you can fly around. But it’s not something that you automatically fly up, it’s more the direction you choose to go. So if you activate the jetpack but don’t tell it where to go, you’re wasting fuel while essentially standing in place or hovering, that’s what it would be. So that’s something unique. But all of the other weapons you’ll find also in the single player game like the 1911 which is a strong side arm pistol.
CHRIS: And based off something that was actually a real weapon.
JAMES: Yeah.
CHRIS: Both that there was a real weapon, there was actually a 1911 pistol, and the one in the game is actually based on one that George Broussard bought and brought into the office.
BRAD: Same with the shotgun. At 3D Realms, the shotgun from Duke 3D is a real shotgun.
JAMES: So George just has this pistol gripped shotgun he brought in?
BRAD: Actually I think it was in the animator’s office for a while.
ANDREW: Yeah, yeah.
BRAD: That was one of the coolest things for me, going to 3D Realms for the first time: seeing that.
ANDREW: One of the coolest things, exactly, was coming into the studio for the first time and seeing their prop department. That’s how a lot of the art for games was created before Photoshop was a sophisticated as it was and digital photography was as sophisticated as it was. If you needed to model a pair of boots for Duke and do the art for it, you went out and bought motorcycle boots. There actually are Duke Nukem’s boots in George Broussard’s possession: the ones that they were based on for all the first games and even Duke 3D.
BRAD: I will say this. It was very obvious early on in our multiplayer testing, that Shrink Ray play is awesome and we started trying to capitalize that within the design of our own maps. One of the maps I worked on, a construction [yard], there’s a lot of tables and there’s holes in the wall with the studs still intact in the walls. So if you’re shrunk, you could slip through there. So you’d be in a room, having a battle with someone and they’ll shrink you and they’ll run over to step on you and you’ll give them the slip by slipping through a mouse-sized hole in the wall and going around and then they try to go around and you can cut back through the other way. So it really turns in to this cat and mouse game, because when shrunk, you’re on a timer until you get enlarged again. And if you get enlarged, while you’re shrunk in a space you can’t fit in, you’re dead. So if you shrink someone and they run under a table and you’re shooting at them and you’re large, trying to nail them with your pistol and they’re dodging you all around, they know they have to get out from under that table pretty quickly or they’re going to die. It really changes the gameplay for that amount of time. It really twists everything on its head.
ANDREW: An additional thing is when you’re shrunk, it scales your gravity and weight as well so you can make your escape sometimes by leaping what people would think is to your death, but you settle slowly to the ground the way an ant would fall out of a skyscraper.
JAMES: Those are great points because the shrunk gameplay is really unique and it’s fraught with peril. You have to be really aware of your surroundings, because you’re not going to make your stand out in the open, shrunk. That’s ridiculous. Everyone will—especially in Duke Match, a free-for-all, if you’re shrunk, everyone forgets what they’re doing to come over and stomp on you.
BRAD: Just to do it, yeah.
JAMES: So yeah, you have to know where you are because there are tables everywhere and there’s some outdoor maps where there are rocks. If that rock’s jutting out at all, you might die underneath it when you grow up. So you have to be very careful and very aware of your surroundings while also remaining on the move. It goes back to the thing I was saying earlier: the multiplayer forces you to be involved. You can’t just stand still. If you stand still, someone’s going to destroy you.
NICK: The shrink ray, even in Duke 3D, that was the same reaction everybody had. There was this distinct “worrroooh” sound when someone shrunk and everybody stops to go chase this dude down and step on him. And like everyone’s laughing maniacally about it and really there’s one point to be gained, but that’s the testament to how fun the multiplayer is in Duke games.
CHRIS: Something that stands out to me when I play, when the shrink ray’s in effect, is that it almost feels dishonorable to use a pistol, or a shotgun or a rocket launcher and it’s really weird because a kill is a kill, right?
JAMES: Right.
CHRIS: You get that point regardless and there’s nothing in game that says, “Oh you’re a jerk” or “What a cheap death” or like “Come on grow a pair”. No, it’s just there’s something in your mind, or at least in my mind—maybe I’m broken — but there’s something in my mind that when I see somebody shrunk ,I’m like “Nope, gotta step on them. Gotta step on them.”
JAMES: Gotta step on them.
BRAD: Gotta step on them.
ANDREW: Yep. It sounds like the same thing that happens to me with the Freeze Ray, if I can mention that. When you freeze somebody, you can switch to another weapon and give a shotgun blast and just shatter them. Or you can get up close and personal and kick their head off and shatter them.
JAMES: Or you can plant a trip mine on them.
BRAD: Yeah, that’s the ultimate.
ANDREW: So there’s almost this subconscious desire to kill with a little bit of style.
BRAD: Yeah. I think planting a trip mine….the first time I planted a trip mine on somebody’s face while they were frozen that might be one of the most memorable moments I’ve had playing multiplayer. Because they can see….half of their screen is filled up with this trip mine on their face and they know they’re just waiting to die.
CHRIS: I love the trip mine so very much because it’s such a call back to the older days when I would just go home and play demos of games on MSN Game Space. But like proximity mines and remote mines and all that are such a wonderful staple of like chaotic, evil multiplayer and being a jerk. It’s so much fun to just throw it on a launch pad or throw it somewhere you know someone is going to walk but place it just right so that they don’t see it or avoid it or they’re going to land there.
ANDREW: What I love, instead of doing the typical thing you might do if you’re in one of the more enclosed spaces; a lot of the maps have interior/exterior spaces with back hallways and some basements and things you can go into. And whenever you go into those back hallways, you’re always aware, “Oh, I could possibly encounter an enemy at any moment” so a lot of times, you want to have your close up and personal weapons when you’re in those small spaces, like the shotgun. I completely gave up on the shotgun in small spaces. I keep my hand over the key I have bound for the trip mine. And that is probably the best thing is running through a base, having a quick encounter with someone when they pop out of a doorway and you’re like “eh, eh, eh” and then bam! They’re just covered in trip mines and you run away. It’s great and you just hear the damage behind you.
JAMES: Definitely don’t want to give away too many things, because--- not out of confidentiality, but I want people to figure this out on their own. There are some very devious things you can do with a trip mine. Chris mentioned one of them and we didn’t actually think of that immediately. It took us a little while. We’ve got this guy on the test team named* Tim Lohrenz, who is this really nice, soft spoken guy; but he is a menace in multiplayer and he just found every spot where you cannot see around the corner and he’d plant a trip mine there. Every jump, he’d figure exactly where you’d land and plant a trip mine. You don’t want to put it on the jump pad, because someone might see it there. You want to put it on the destination, so they think they got away from you scot-free and then they realize they’re plummeting to their death and it’s their fault.
CHRIS: And you can’t do anything at that point. Like all you can say is, “Oh shit there’s a trip mine there.”
BRAD: Yeah.
CHRIS: You can’t be, “Oh yeah, I’m going to steer clear of it” unless you’re fortunate enough to…
ELIZABETH: It’s just like, goodbye.
BRAD: Well not to give another strategy away, but trip mines are easily disposed of with pipe bombs. So it’s not like it’s an over-powered broken thing. I mean if you’re careful, you’re not going to get killed by a trip mine.
ANDREW: If you’ve committed to a jump pad jump and you’re incoming on a bunch of trip mines and you can get your RPG out in time, you can clear your way. And that adds more depth to the game.
JAMES: The pipe bombs are another very great thing. Someone may think they have this unassailable position and you just lob that thing up there and go 3, 2, click.
ANDREW: Yeah, we’re pretty happy with the way they bounce.
JAMES: Oh yeah, yeah. That’s one of the great points is they have great bouncing to them.
ELIZABETH: Yeah, can you talk, before we wrap up, about the customization options? Because it’s not just a bunch of clones with different shirt colors running around.
ANDREW: No, no, no. We have eyewear. We have headgear.
BRAD: Eyewear, hats, all sorts of stuff you can unlock. There are a lot of unlockables. I don’t know if we can get into the My Dig stuff. That’s a whole other realm of unlockables specific to multiplayer, which doesn’t even have anything to do with the customization of Duke. But yeah, there are different shirt colors, there’s different kinds of shirts you can wear; lots of ways to make your own Duke.
JAMES: Yeah, and not all of them make you look cool. Some of the accessories you can put on make you look goofy, which to me that’s my favorite thing. Whenever one of these guys is on a frenzy, just killing everything around him and he’s got on some jerkwad tank top or some goofy hat. Like everyone knows who that guy is and they all want to take him down, but they just can’t. They really start to hate that Duke.
BRAD: Yeah, that guy with the double rainbow shirt…
ELIZABETH: I know that we could probably talk endlessly about multiplayer, but I think that you’ve given everyone a good overview. Thanks guys.
BRAD: Thanks Piranha!
JAMES: Yes, thanks Piranha!
ELIZABETH: If you guys are anything like me, you could probably listen to these guys talk about multiplayer for a lot longer than this podcast has lasted – but we had to let the team get back to doing what they do best: making the game awesome. But don’t worry – when the game comes out, these guys will be online and I’m sure you’ll be able to get in a match or two with them.

DNF demo exlusive for FAC on June 3rd

2011-05-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

Watch the announcement video here

Leaked video of the internet demo?!

2011-05-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbR3qVGUgs0&feature=player_embedded

Wow nice intro with the companies logos on the dices! But the demo is the same as the Pax one. Didn't Randy said the demo for the internet will be different?!

We will see soon enough. I predict DNF demo early next week! :)

UPDATE: Crystal ball says: DNF: Shrinkage video upcoming

2011-05-04T17:24:00.000-07:00

I predict a DNF video being released about Shrinkage in the next few hours.

Watch this space.... ;)

UPDATE: DNF shrinkage footage!

DNF system requirements revealed!

2011-05-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

Wow, DNF should run glorious on old pc's

Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.0 Ghz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 @ 2.0 Ghz
Memory: 1 Gb
Hard Drive: 10 Gb free
Video Memory: 256 MB
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 7600 / ATI Radeon HD 2600
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible

Recommended Specifications
OS: Windows XP/Vista/7
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.4 Ghz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 @ 2.6 Ghz
Memory: 2 Gb
Hard Drive: 10 Gb free
Video Memory: 512 MB
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8800 GTS / ATI Radeon HD 3850
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible

OTHER REQUIREMENTS & SUPPORTS
Initial installation requires one-time internet connection for Steam authentication; software installations required (included with the game) include Steam Client, Microsoft DirectX, Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable (ATL), Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable, and AMD Dual Core Optimizer. (AMD optimizer required only for specific AMD processors to run the game correctly, but installs for all of them.)

Software license terms available at www.take2games.com/eula. Non-transferable access to special features such as exclusive, unlockable, downloadable or online content, services, or functions may require single-use serial code, additional fee and/or online account registration (13+). Access to special features may require internet connection, may not be available to all users, and may, upon 30 days notice, be terminated, modified or offered under different terms. Online play and download requires broadband internet service. User responsible for associated fees.

Source

Massive update: new podcast, battlelord concepts, screenshots and papercraft revealed

2011-04-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

Download the new podcast

PODCAST FOUR: ATMOSPHERE IN DUKE NUKEM FOREVER
April 27, 2011
ELIZABETH: Welcome to the fourth episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. I’m Elizabeth Tobey, and today I’m with some of the guys from Triptych to talk about what goes in to making the atmosphere in DNF. Through art, level design, and an array of different audio tricks, these guys bring their version of Vegas to life.
ERIC: My name is Eric Von Rothkirch and I’m Audio Director at Triptych Games.
BRAD: My name is Brad Jacobs and I’m a Level Designer here at Triptych Games.
ANDREW: My name is Andrew Baker and I’m a Level Designer here at Triptych Games.
CHRIS D: My name is Chris DeSimone and I’m a CG artist at Triptych Games.
ELIZABETH: For today’s podcast we’re talking about atmosphere and location and everything that goes in to making the world of DNF believable. So let’s start with the broad and obvious. Where does Duke Nukem Forever take place and why did you choose to put it there?
CHRIS FAYLOR: The answer here is Vegas, by the way.
CHRIS D: The game Duke Nukem takes place in a variety of locations but mainly Vegas is the backdrop for the game and that’s something that was decided a long time ago, before my time; back when they first started in ’97.
ELIZABETH: More than just the where of the game, could you talk about when it takes place and sort of the liberties that you took with that “when”?
ERIC: It’s always been kind of a “near future” not really a specific time, but near future.
BRAD: I think it’s more specifically 12 years since the last game; so it’s kind of an alternate universe thing.
ANDREW: Absolutely. It takes place after Duke 3D. It is sort of a sequel. So you imagine the world of Duke 3D which is kind of an alternate United States---imagine what’s happened in 10-15 years, since then.
BRAD: Yeah.
ELIZABETH: So on a more granular level, can you talk more about some of the locations and places that you’ll see in Duke Nukem Forever and why did you decide to build out those spaces? Now I’m not just going individual levels or maps, but also indoor versus outdoor and how that really translates to the mood and also to the game play.
CHRIS D: Well, like I said before there are several different locations and mainly one of them is Vegas and of course if you’re in Vegas, you want to see a casino. And of course, in our game, Duke owns a casino so you’ll get to see what kind of a casino Duke would actually own. As well you’ll also get to see the outside and there was actually a little bit of fighting going on between what to show as far as the exterior of Vegas: should it be at night or should it be during the day? And we felt it actually looked better during the day because we could get better results from the way it looked ‘cause at night you just don’t see as much. And I know that people want to see Vegas at night, but we kind of went the other route with that. And then we also have a lot of terrain maps as well as the Hoover Dam, which of course you know is near Vegas. There’s also, I don’t know if I can say it-- there’s also kind of like an alien environment which the gamer will eventually see. I’m not going to reveal too much.
ANDREW: I know one thing I wanted to add real quick was as well as Duke’s casino, you get to see other Duke themed businesses and projects throughout the game—and I don’t want to give anything away but you go to a couple of other places that Duke may or may not be involved with his franchises and projects which were pretty interesting and cool.
CHRIS F: What I thought was interesting is that those aren’t just---well obviously the brands and franchises are made up---but the locations and even most of Vegas in the game is based on real world Vegas and then just flipped, like “what if Duke really owned Vegas?” Because he saved the world and became such a phenomenon that he could do anything he wanted.
ANDREW: I remember a funny thing was that George [Broussard] goes to Vegas or went to Vegas a lot and he brought back a whole bunch of photos from the strip that helped a lot of people. Basically he cruised the streets in his Lamborghini and took photos for a while so it gave us a good basis for a lot of locations and backdrops.
CHRIS D: Yeah that was back in ’97 or ’98 but none of us were there. Al [Blum] was. Yeah and he actually took a lot of the guys who were working at 3D Realms to Vegas and they actually stayed at a bunch of the different casinos and took reference pictures.
ELIZABETH: Yeah I’ve seen pictures of people at the Hoover Dam too.
BRAD: Speaking about Vegas streets, going back to what you were saying about daytime, a lot of games do Vegas at night and us doing Vegas during the daytime not only made it fresher, but it shows off the war a lot better, during the daytime. It’s sort of like the morning after the worst Vegas party there could possibly be; it kind of has that vibe to it and I always thought that was really fitting to Duke.
ANDREW: The alien ship showed up and turned everybody into Pig Cops.
BRAD: Yeah, that kind of thing. It’s a bad thing, yeah.
ELIZABETH: People often focus on the look of the world, in general, and you know the concept art of the big vistas; but what makes the gaming world to me are the little details, the brands that you were talking about ---the sounds, either ambient or the noises you’re actually hearing during combat. How did you guys make that realistic yet fantastical? What did you aim for and what did you focus on when making every little detail that brought the world to life?
CHRIS D: I would say that it wasn’t exactly entirely planned. I mean there were parts where like with Vegas, you kind of knew what we wanted to do and in some instances they would kind of give---I’ll just give a for instance---like a task for you to do; like another casino.
ANDREW: Yep. We approached it from both directions. We had designers that would work kind of grey box basic designs up and then artists would try and bring those to life. But we also had artist do kind of 3D concept art for us and just build the places and then we’d look at it and say, “OK well you can cut this here so I can separate these here to make this modular” and then make levels from that and they both worked.
CHRIS F: And then that 3D concept art the artists made, that wasn’t just some guy that came off the street; that was someone who actually had a background in architecture.
ANDREW: Right, one of them, Andrew Kerschner.
BRAD: Speaking to the humor and the art, like I think a lot of the humor in the game; there’s so many hidden pieces of art to find that have little jokes on them, little labels to read. There’s just jokes everywhere. I think that process really worked to the game’s favor because you had all these artists that said, “Oh I really get to put jokes in everything?” So they would just sneak in jokes whenever they could and we would just be play testing our maps and find a new piece of art and find a new joke. It was just adding value to the game, all the time.
ERIC: Speaking to some of the character and the details, what you were talking about; the mixture between real world and more over the top stuff, audio-wise, that’s always been kind of a struggle and a fun challenge. Like say you have a desert environment. Out in the desert it’s arid and windy and things like that. You don’t want it to be too realistic; you want it to be comical with little elements, like the tumble weed blowing in the background and things like that: the classics.
ANDREW: Yeah, like cliché it up, which is a good thing.
ERIC: Yeah. You almost can’t go too original with the iconic stuff. You have to bring in elements that people recognize, so we tried to do that as much as possible throughout the levels, when designing the environments.
BRAD: That’s really helped the flavor in general, I’d say.
ELIZABETH: How about casting the characters and the voices, the sounds that you hear? There’s a lot beyond just Duke’s voice that you hear that adds to the mood of the game.
ERIC: There’s a lot of dialogue in the game. You mean the NPC’s? The NPC’s we cast a lot of them at Triptych and as it turns out some of the voices were the same voices that are in Borderlands, but we didn’t know that. We did not know that; didn’t plan that.
That was just a funny coincidence, and when Randy came and looked at the game the first time, he actually recognized some of the voices and said, “Oh, I know that voice.” That was pretty funny. We went with people who could or who were willing to go over the top and were comfortable going over the top. Some people turned us down saying “This is just too goofy” and that’s fine. So we ended up finding a lot of people who had more of a silly side and wanted to do more silly stuff in their acting. That ended up working out really well for the actors that we chose.
ELIZABETH: Going a little bit into the history of the game and the long dev cycle, how did the levels change over time---either as tech change or the direction of the game changed? Is there anything that stayed pretty consistent or do you have an example of anything wildly different?
BRAD: A lot of the overall game locations and concepts stayed the same. Like the overall idea that we want this type of environment, with these types of things in it stayed the same, more or less. But yeah, like how levels were built. Several different approaches were tried.
ERIC: The general progression was the same too---not to give too much away. You started out in Duke’s casino then went out into the environment and explored those. That has all remained consistent.
ANDREW: Yeah, it’s been pretty consistent for about 5-6 years. There haven’t been any huge tech changes since then. One of my first jobs in 2005 was to take levels that were built kind of in the 2000 era with a very brush oriented mentality and convert them into more static meshes and patch mesh art. That’s what I did for the first few months I was at the office, to literally take stuff that already existed and modernize it for a while. A lot of that was cut, though. That’s one thing too; the game’s gone through multiple cuts and moments where production would literally look at the game as a whole and then start over from the perspective of what’s going to have us wind up with the best game and plan out new cuts. We would pull levels apart and put them back together; more than once. And I think that’s helped the pacing and the feel of the game immensely.
CHRIS D: Yeah, the game was definitely huge in scope. There were a lot of levels and we kind of had to just pick certain ones that we really wanted in the game and say “OK, the rest we shouldn’t do because it would take forever to make it.”
BRAD: Or really just compromise the quality of the rest of the game and this game is about customization anyways. So in order to achieve the level of customization we have in our game, you have to at some point, become very focused on those locations only. Like speaking, the game is a more linear first person shooter. It’s not like an open world type game so it’s going to be more focused.
ELIZABETH: When you talk about customization, what do you mean?
BRAD: I mean there’s so many different surprises. So many of the games these days are set in a war. Our game is set in a war, but it’s an adventure in a war and that’s not very common anymore: adventure and first person shooters have kind of fallen by the wayside. There’s probably no better universe to have an adventure in than Duke’s universe and that allowed us to do a lot of things to surprise the player. I don’t want to give anything away but I mean almost every level has something that’s going to surprise you. There’s something funny, there’s something exciting, there’s something…there’s little to know just grinding through another combat sequence in our game. It’s very much like, “Oh here’s a twist here, here’s something new that happens here, here’s a funny scripted sequence, there’s something here.”
CHRIS D: That’s what I like about it. You know, you’re not being forced through the level. You can stop and look around and like you’re saying, you can interact with things. You’re not just getting from A to B and that’s it. I mean it is a little linear, but there’s little side shoots, little areas you can explore.
BRAD: Yeah and that ties in, like you said, to the interactive side of the game. Again, I can’t give anything away, but there are so many cool, interactive things in the game and no one really does that kind of thing anymore. We have a full blown, working pinball machine in game and it works exactly like a real pinball machine. It’s not a quick and dirty mini-game. It’s a full working pinball machine. It keeps your high score, it does everything.
ANDREW: Yeah and it’s not simulated. It uses the same physics as the rest of the game. That was really hard to actually get to work and there were moments when we were like, “Why don’t we just simulate this? We can’t really do it.” But we persevered and I think that’s how a lot of the elements in the game feel: united, together because they’re all from the same thing.
I was going to go really quickly to the technical side of customization. We’ve got a few things a few technologies in the level making process that are kind of unusual, I think for game development now; in that there are a lot of tools for the level designers to customize areas with blending textures from surface to surface. We have patch mesh tools which are very much like rudimentary modeling tools in the editor. They’re kind of like the, if people will remember, patches and patch meshes from id Software’s Quake, things like Quake 3 and things like that but five years on. What would it be like? What would those tools be like? And both the artists and level designers use that together. But I think that’s why the environments feel like they do is it’s not just a series of sets of static meshes and art that you’ve seen reused and repositioned. We tried to keep things unique. If not completely unique, at least one or two things you would note as being as new like “Oh I haven’t seen this yet” as you go through the game.
ELIZABETH: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. We’ll be back next time to explore aliens in DNF.

BATTLELORD CONCEPTS

April 27, 2011

By now, you probably know the Battlelord very well (or his crotch, at the very least).

These are some early concepts of the Battlelord as the team tried to decide the look of his head.

And while not the final render, many of you will recognize this guy from trailers we’ve released in the past!

New released screenshots

BADASS DUKE NUKEM FOREVER PAPERCRAFT

April 27, 2011

As you may know, we're including an exclusive papercraft Duke in the Balls of Steel edition. We've fielded several requests to see this figure - and today, we're unveiling what Duke will look like – right now, in fact!

Now, a sneak peak of the Balls of Steel papercraft is awesome, but we're all about instant gratification, so we've made an additional DNF papercraft that you can download and make now. Check it out:

Face melting new DNF trailer

2011-04-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

COME GET SOME!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpqLi1litQ4

In this case hip hop was the perfect fit for this trailer! It blows my head off!

Third DNF podcast and inside Duke Burger pics

2011-04-20T23:15:00.000-07:00

PODCAST THREE (audio): GUNS, GRENADES, AND OTHER SHIT THAT GOES BOOM

Read the transcript (text)

INSIDE DUKE BURGER

April 20, 2011

Duke Nukem owns quite a bit of Vegas – including his own burger franchise, Duke Burger.

Unfortunately, Duke Burger is not spared during the alien invasion.

The Duke Nukem Forever teams explored both the interior and exterior designs of the burger joint, as evidenced by this concept image, to create the perfect background.

Duke Nukem comic book revealed!

2011-04-15T05:29:00.000-07:00

Duke Nukem: Glorious Bastard #1 Coming In July From IDW Publishing!

Appearing in a comic book for the first time, Duke Nukem is back, bigger and badder than ever!

Everyone who was into action gun games knows about Duke Nukem, and Duke Nukem is not letting anyone or anything stand in his way as he makes his way through the comic world.

Written by Tom Waltz (The A-Team: Shotgun Wedding), Duke Nukem: Glorious Bastard will be a fantastic series, with all the game's trademark humor and over-the-top violence. With this new series coming out, old fans and new will be coming out of the woodwork for new adventures of Duke Nukem!

Source

2K Games: DNF - Babes video

2011-04-08T02:20:00.000-07:00

Incoming hotness!

ENJOY! ;)

One podcast and one Duke sounds feature released!

2011-04-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

- If you want to check out exclusive Duke sounds voiced by Jon St. John follow the link!

- Want to check out the first DNF podcast?! Go to the community section of dukenukemforever.com or just read the transcript here!

PODCAST ONE: DUKE WHO?
April 6, 2011
ELIZABETH: Welcome to the first episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. I'm Elizabeth Tobey, and recently I spent several days down in Texas with members of the Gearbox and Triptych team, picking their brains about all things DNF. Today, we begin broadly, asking the question "Duke Who?" To many (I might even say most) of you, this question might be obvious - we're talking about Duke Nukem. But to some, the name "Duke Nukem" might be a new one - and it's time to give you a lesson on why that name is one you should never forget, and why Duke Nukem is awesome.
Today, I talk with Allen Blum, David Riegel, Eric Von Rothkirch and Kristen Haglund from Triptych as well as Chris Faylor from Gearbox.

ELIZABETH: So we're kicking off this podcast series by talking about who is Duke Nukem? Some of the people listening to this are probably die-hard Duke fans who know him inside and out and some of them are probably brand new to him. So can you take us through a quick history lesson of who Duke Nukem is?

ALLEN: Duke started back in 1990 with Duke 1. Duke was...

CHRIS: Duke was a bad ass.

ALLEN: Yeah Duke was a bad ass.

DAVID: I suppose in the early days, my perspective was that Duke was kind of the ultimate action hero without a whole lot of personality because of the limitations of the side scroller engine and what was going on at the time. And then Duke really came into his own in Duke 3D, when he started having a voice and a character--when technology made it possible for him to start interacting with the world; to put it the detail to create comedy and satire and the other things that make up the Duke game that people remember.

ELIZABETH: So moving on from Duke Nukem the man, let's talk about Duke Nukem Forever and again, I'm going to guess that most people listening here know what Duke Nukem Forever is so for the very few who may not....I know the story is super involved and it's not going to be something we can do in the span of this podcast, but what's the overview of where Duke Nukem Forever fits into the history of the franchise and the world.

ALLEN: Well in Duke 3D, Duke saved the world, killed the aliens and all of that and since then, he's basically been on vacation; exploring the world, doing his things, climbing Mt. Everest, going around the world,

CHRIS: Going into space...

ALLEN: Going into space...

KRISTEN: Winning the poker tournament.

ALLEN: So Duke's hanging out in this casino enjoying life in Vegas and the aliens return all peaceful and friendly—but they're not. Duke soon finds that out and off you go.

CHRIS: I like that one of the first things the aliens do is not to antagonize Duke, it's to line up at one of his many establishments.

KRISTEN: Well I mean even the aliens may not like Duke, but Duke's a great chef.

DAVID: One of the things about Duke's character that's kind of fascinating is that people remember the comedy from Duke 3D but internally I think at 3D Realms and after, we always pushed Duke on having Duke as kind of a serious character and I know that sounds very strange if you've played the earlier games. But we always pictured Duke as being kind of a serious guy in a world that's gone completely nuts when the aliens invade. So when we approached Duke Nukem Forever, even in the early days, we always had this vision that Duke was this guy who saved the world and we wanted to construct a world around him that was believable. So if you really had this guy who actually killed a bunch of aliens and saved the world, what would his life be like? Well he would be a billionaire playboy who owns his own casino and who is good at everything he does and is the most recognizable man in the world. So that creates the background for how we place him in Duke Nukem Forever and so even though he's kind of cool and confident and doesn't say very much, like the world around him is kind of this crazy establishment.

KRISTEN: Well I don't want people to get the impression that he's serious and he's cool and that he downplays his contribution---Duke is all ego and Duke is fully aware of how awesome he is and the world recognizes his awesomeness so you don't have this stereotypical humble hero. You've got this guys tha's like, "Well yes, I am awesome and thank you for building busts in my honor and worshipping me."

CHRIS: We're talking a lot about the world that Duke Nukem inhabits. There are some side characters to this; some characters that interact with him that totally define it. The Holsom Twins are somebody that are a pair that many will be familiar with from PAX. We've also got the president and some other characters. Can you speak about those?

DAVID: Well since Duke is probably the most powerful man in the world, at least from a celebrity standpoint, he's going to do what celebrities do and date lots of hot, young girls. So this kind of fits into that fantasy where the Holsom Twins are two twin sisters who are pop superstar divas and they worship Duke and the ground that he walks on. In one of the first scenes in the game, you're introduced to them as his quote-girlfriends-unquote...

KRISTEN: Babe of the moment...

DAVID: Yes, babe of the moment...

KRISTEN: Babes of the moment...

DAIVD: ...that accompany him through the first part of the game, so they have kind of an important role in the story since the aliens who want to disrupt Duke; if they can't get to him, then they'll go after the girls.

KRISTEN: Or women in general, because he's big on saving the babes. And then he's got... the president has a more political view on how the aliens should be dealt with and the aliens come bearing gifts and promises of peace. And of course the president does what all good politicians do, which is....politics....

CHRIS: Oh, I thought you were going to say screw up.

KRISTEN: I was trying to be politically correct. The president kind of shapes the course of how Duke is forced to deal with certain things and how certain events unfold and then while most of the EDF is questionable...

DAVID: For those who aren't familiar with the trailers and so forth of the game, the EDF are the Earth Defense Force which are the federal police force that was established after Duke 3D in order to protect the world from aliens. So they're an important soldier class in the game that you see a whole lot of.

KRISTEN: And there is one in particular that is an old buddy of Duke's. You can see why they get along, they go far back. That's one of my favorite characters.

ERIC: Yeah, Capt. Dillon.

KRISTEN: I love Dillon.

ERIC: The thing I always think about Dillon is how we were talking about what kind of language the characters would use and which would swear and which wouldn't and I think it was you Al that said couldn't we just focus that all on one character and have one character represent all the foul mouthed attitude?

KRISTEN: Yeah that was the idea. Because we had a lot of profanity peppered through the script and it was Al's idea to have one character be chosen as every third word was something profane or just vulgar and yeah, I would say Dillon is definitely....

DAVID: Well that's the thing when you're trying to incorporate comedy into an action script, whether you're talking about film or television or games is that you have to know when you're going too far. And I think that with the very early drafts of the script that we had some of the team felt we were going a little bit too far that it was a little bit too silly. So qe wanted to re-establish some of the serious characters in the beginning of the game, then we needed to have an exaggeration and we needed to focus the comedy in particular points. So we had this one character, who is Duke's friend who has a history with Duke according to the fiction of the game that you meet about two hours in and we just decided to focus all the profanity and exaggeration on him. It's pretty hilarious for people playing the game for the first time.

KRISTEN: Duke is a a man who deals with things seriously but it's hard to take him seriously and Dillon highlights that you can't take this too seriously and it's just hilarious.

CHRIS: I like to think that Dillon's just actually the result of Duke Nukem; like Duke got this fame and fortune for doing all these over the top things and Dillon saw it and was so influenced at a young age and said, "I'm going to join the army; I'm going to do all this" and he ends up meeting Duke and they hit it off because in a weird sense, Dillon is Duke.

KRISTEN: Yeah, I agree but I would think Dillon is the guy that misunderstood what Duke was going for.

ELIZABETH: Just missed the mark.

KRISTEN: Yeah, just missed the mark and took it too far. But he's funny anyway.

ELIZABETH: So by now, I think everyone can understand how storied and how infamous this game is and this franchise, so what do you want people to think or feel when they're playing the game? What were you guys aiming to achieve with Duke Nukem Forever? Simple question.

DAVID: Well we hoped it would cure all poverty and lead to world peace.

KRISTEN: A greater understanding between men and women about the real nature of men....

CHRIS: Yeah but leave disease for the next game, right?

ELIZABETH: You got to have a sequel for something.

ALLEN: Well Duke 3D everything was sprite based and flat; you could do a lot of stuff: we had strippers and everything but it was just all flat. You'd play it as Duke, it was 3D but it really wasn't and now that things are actually polygonal 3D you really get a feeling of being Duke, in the world, interacting with things doing stuff. You got cool strippers who enjoy it.

ERIC: Actual jiggling boobs...

ALLEN: And things...

KRISTEN: The stories behind the jiggling boobs...

DAVID: Twentieth century technology.

KRISTEN: Yeah. What did they do? They sent people to the moon with less than a calculator. These days, we've taken all that technology and we make boobs jiggle.

CHRIS: How many Apollo 13's do you think it would take to render one boob jiggle?

KRISTEN: I don't know, but the boob jiggling is really damn good.

CHRIS: I think that one of the things that a lot of people have missed out on or forgotten about the series is the focus on interactivity. I've heard some people describe it that it's almost like an adventure game with shooting, instead of a shooter as they're traditionally defined now. What do you have to say about that?

DAVID: I think that in terms of how to make Duke unique, over the years, I think that's really focused on two areas. The first, I think is obviously the character and the personality and the second element is of course the game play and one of the things that stands out in Duke is the interactivity. So whenever we're creating levels, it's not just about the combat and driving the story forward, it's also about populating the world with all these things that you can do with it and mess around with. And some of them have a direct influence on combat; like things that you can pick up and you can throw at enemies and kill them. Other things are kind of indirect; like ways that you can manipulate the world for fun or a system where Duke can build his ego by doing things in the world that are like manly and cool: like lifting weights and playing pinball and things like that. Then we have quest objects in the world and humor objects and just mini -games in general where you can go kill time if you want.

ERIC: I think that differentiates some of the elements that have survived over time too. We used to have more general, generic interactable objects and over time it was like "is picking up a pencil really, really Duke?" I mean being able to throw it around and do stuff. Or is it more of a cool thing to lift weights and do that kind of stuff. Just as two examples, that kind of thing.

CHRIS: I think what's really cool is like David, you were talking about doing general things; you can do things that affect the story. When you go and you encounter these situations, you don't actually know what's what. It's hard for a player to be like, "Oh this is just going to do something cool to the room it's not going to...I mean most people, there's a point in the game where you have to microwave popcorn. Let's come out and say it out: you have to microwave popcorn. So when that mechanic is introduced in an earlier mission, and it's completely optional, I don't think anybody's going to be like, "Oh yeah, I better learn how to do this now."

KRISTEN: Well I think one of the things that makes Duke reallyenjoyable from a player, I have somewhat of a technology background but never in video games and I strictly am familiar with Duke from a player perspective, is that one thing I like and have always liked about Duke is that all those things in the world feel like Easter eggs. So it feels like you're getting this cool thing you're not really supposed to have, and yet you're supposed to have it and I think that's what makes it very different from your standard "Oh I need this and clearly it's being presented to me for a purpose". You don't know: is it just some random thing I can do or do I actually need to learn this? And from a gamer point of view and not enjoying linear game play where you're lead around by the nose, I get to enjoy it. I really get to enjoy it without thinking why I should be enjoying it or why I should pay attention.

ELIZABETH: Now I know that we could go super in-depth and talk forever about all the things that make Duke Duke, but I think we'll leave that for the subsequent podcasts. But before we go, could you give an overview of the teams and the studios that have made Duke and are bringing him back to life now.

DAVID: Duke Nukem originated at 3D Realms of course. Allen Blum, George Broussard and Scott Miller and a lot of the early guys back in the day are really responsible for the core concept and the character and bringing the game to life in many ways. 3D Realms ceased development in 2009 and at that point Triptych games was formed by some ex-3D Realms employees and a few other people and we resumed development. We're still working on the game and doing content and a couple of multiplayer maps and optimization on some things to help out on consoles. Piranha Games has joined the party to help bring the game to consoles and doing a tremendous amount of engineering work in that respect and is also responsible for multiplayer with code and gameplay. Then Gearbox Software are the care takers of the franchise now and they're managing everything from a high level and have lent a tremendous amount of support on the engineering side, helping get the game out of the door, and also for QA and marketing.
And then all of us are working with 2K Games who is publishing and doing all the great things that are peripheral to the game: marketing, funding and getting the game ready for retail.

CHRIS: I think one neat thing about Duke Nukem is that not only has it gone through multiple developers, but multiple publishers as well. It was originally a GT Interactive game way back when. There was also a time when it was being produced under Gathering of Developers, God Games which was later acquired by Take-Two Interactive and was instrumental in the formation of 2K Games as a publishing label. I look at my 2K Games representative with a question mark there... [laughs]
There was even a time when Duke Nukem Forever was slated to make its debut as a digital download title for Triton, wasn't it?

ALLEN: Yeah, there was Triton briefly. I think Prey came out on that or was going to come out on it. That was something 3D Realms was trying.

KRISTEN: When you think about it, we have a friend who had a child in '97 or '98 and he is now an eighth grader and he wants to be a game developer. And I look at Jared and I'm like, "I remember when your mother was my roommate in college".

CHRIS: Somebody pointed out, when we launched the "Have You Worked on Duke" credit site looking for all the people, one of the articles pointed out that if you were born when Duke Nukem Forever was announced, you are now in high school. And it's like...wow.

KRISTEN: Yeah, really trippy. Makes us feel a little old.

DAVID: Better be worth the wait.

KRISTEN: Well yeah. A whole new generation is now ready for Duke.

CHRIS: I like the idea of Duke showing the world what humor is, what good gameplay is and what it's all about, then disappearing, like stepping away for a little bit and watching things evolve and then coming back and saying "Nope you did it wrong."

KRISTEN: You see this? No don't do this.

CHRIS: Like "Hey guys, that's cool. Like what you did there is really cool.Just want to be sure you remember where we came from." It's really is blast, it's a throw back and it feels modern.

KRISTEN: I don't think that it's a throw back. I think that if anything, it's just good game play and that something that's quality and just plain good stands the test of time.

CHRIS: I guess when I say throw back I just mean a lot of the gameplay stuff is that has been iterated out.

KRISTEN: Yeah, it's kind of gone the way of the dodo bird.

DAVID: So that makes just some great opportunities for satire and we've got those sprinkled throughout the game. In the very beginning there's a key card joke where you think that you're supposed to find a key card for a door, but you actually don't. Now I don't want to give that one away. But there's plenty of other instances where you're fighting along some of the soldiers and they yell out, "Get behind that chest high wall". That's a little specific; but that sounds familiar with current game design.

CHRIS: There's a lot more than you think. It's just like the environments and everything else. There's so many details packed into it. Thank you so much everyone for taking the time we really appreciate it.

ALLEN: I'd like to say to fans that I'm actually now working on the demo so I will get back to that and try to finish it for you guys.

ELIZABETH: This concludes the first episode of the Duke Nukem Forever podcast series. We'll be back next time to give you a history lesson about DNF. Thanks for listening

The Story behind Duke Nukem video doc part 1!

2011-04-06T12:21:00.000-07:00

EPIC!

I think I just came.

Pure SEX

Can't wait for the next part!

What would Duke do

2011-04-01T05:52:00.000-07:00

Although it's April 1 2K Games released 2 first gameplay clips of a new series called "what would Duke do"

Enjoy! XD

Jetpack

Holy $%&*#

Australian rating board spoils DNF scenes!

2011-03-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

ATTENTION MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

Here are some examples:

In various bathroom locations throughout the game, the player can have Duke “piss” in urinals and on occasion, in these same venues can also pick up faecal matter from a toilet bowl and throw it about.

The Board also notes the player ability, in a final climactic scene when Duke kills the alien general, to implicitly urinate into the defeated creature’s eye socket. The Board notes that within that playable context, no other ability is affected which enables the player to direct urine flow or throw faecal matter at or onto other characters and no nudity is depicted during these activies.

No dismemberment or decapitation is viewed.

Commentary: I guess the classification board didn't played the game properly! LOL

In one of the game levels, Duke enters an alien lair to “rescue” kidnapped Earth women who have been implicitly impregnated by the alien enemy.
These women are rendered with a mannequin-like appearance, and appear torso nude and partially cocooned either suspected from a cave-like roof or against walls.
In order to “spare” the women’s suffering Duke has the ability to shoot the women resulting in small blood bursts. Those he does not shoot are seen implicitly exploding as the alien “baby” matures.

In the level Titty City, Duke enters a strip club where he meets a stripper who invites him to locate (among other items) a vibrator and a condom.
In the men’s toilet, Duke can enter a toilet cubicle with what appears to be a “glory hole” in the cubicle wall. A cartoon image of a woman’s face is on the wall with a hole evident in the drawing’s mouth and the word “Yum” beside it.
Upon the successful completion of this level, Duke is given a “special” lap-dance by the stripper. The breast nude female is depicted in a first person perspective implicitly gyrating on Duke’s lap.
The Board notes a facility also exists for the player to “jiggle” the stripper’s breasts during this scene.

Source

Original source

DNF officially DELAYED to June!!!! UPDATE!

2011-03-24T05:11:00.000-07:00

Yes that's right. I guess Duke never comes early...forever! :P

http://www.youtube.com/user/2kgamesinternational?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/KeMF2KJ0JG0

I will keep you updated on this topic!

I have the feeling that with DNF being in the spotlight on the internet again...the announcement of the delay caused a major visitors peak at Duke4.net and GBX forums and is a trending topic on twitter again....there is some big momentan right there. The demo release would make huge impact now. You hear me GBX! ;)

UPDATE:

Randy speaks up on the GBX forums:

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for coming to the forums and beating us up a bit over this. We asked you guys to come here and do that and we really deserve it. I am ultimately responsible for Duke now, so I deserve it. Given that we've made this mistake and it's cost everyone another several weeks of waiting, I think it's helpful for myself and for all of us to feel a little pain from that.

I want you to know, though, that when we announced May, we believed it. Thousands and thousands of tasks and bugs have been completed since then. Each of those work items created a degree of uncertainty with our prediction. But we use our experience and the trends and data we have to guide our predictions and that gave us confidence that May was not only accurate, but had some cushion in it.

I don't think I'm going to surprise anyone with this information, but it turns out that from a project point of view, Duke is a different beast all together. Some of our experience, it turns out, didn't turn out to help us as much as we are used to in providing accuracy with our predictions. Many of the elements of uncertainty that were rolled up in all of the unfinished work turned out to be more challenging or difficult than we were able to see at that time and too many of those points of uncertainty ended up biting us.

So we had to make a very difficult, painful and expensive decision to shift the date by several weeks.

When we announced May, we believed it and we felt that our fans, who have been waiting so long for this game, deserved to know what we believed. After all - by the time we announced the launch date (in January), we had gone many months since we first announced the return of Duke at PAX Prime in August of 2010. During that time, the sentiment among the most loyal fans was that we OWED them information.

I didn't want to do the "when it's done" thing. I think that would've been worse - more as if we were toying with fans. Certainly we must have *some* idea! That's what the sentiment would've been if we said "when it's done" and it would've been true.

We had some idea. In fact, we felt very confident that May was the time.

But the problem with these projects is that there is a lot of uncertainty in the tasks and challenges where the solutions aren't already known and the time it takes to implement the solutions that are known is also not known.

But fans don't want uncertainty. We don't want to hear uncertainty at all, do we? We want answers. And we, as gamers and customers, deserve answers.

So we thought we were doing the right thing. We provided answers. We announced the date that, at the time, we knew and understood to be the true date.

As we got along a little more, say, the month of February, it looked like we could make it.

And, there was a lot at stake and waffling on something like the ship date for Duke Nukem Forever isn't a good idea. So we really convinced ourselves. I convinced myself.

But I was wrong.

I'm sorry I was wrong.

I'm for that I am so, so sorry.

We're doing the best we can. Our mission is to complete and deliver the game that all of us, Gearbox people included, have waited so long to get our hands on. This game - this legendary, unimaginably fascinating and historical game - is one that not too long ago should've been dead. It *was* dead, but not for the love of the fans and the commitment of the team that is working day and night to bring it to release.

But it turns out that doing "the best we can" did not give us sufficient accuracy in our predictions to avoid this situation.

So I am sorry.

Now - what about the video?

Once we knew the decision we had to make, we talked about how we would tell everyone.

There were ideas about doing some kind of bit where it was going to be made out like it was Duke's fault. Some even suggested laying blame on some of the people or issues where uncertainty on the project was the highest and results caused the most variables in date predictability.

Ultimately, I decided that:

1) We need to own this responsibility for the delay and apologize for it, and
2) That *I* needed to own up to this personally.

I am now responsible for Duke Nukem now so whatever happens with this game, good or bad, is ultimately my responsibility. So I was going to own that responsibility. That was a key component of how to reveal that we missed.

I should now explain that we have this weird kind of thing that drives most of us... I have this weird kind of thing *very* strongly - maybe too strongly.

Here's what this weird kind of thing is: Our purpose in life is to entertain people.

That's what drives me. I can't seem to be okay with myself unless whatever energy I have is used to help enable and provide entertainment and feelings of joy and amusement for others.

I care about video games because, well, interactive entertainment is simply the most interesting, exciting, compelling, valuable, meaningful, impactful and important form of entertainment in the world.

So we couldn't help ourselves. With the announcement, the video also couldn't help itself but to try to entertain you. Even though it was about me owning responsibility for the delay and about us apologizing for it and even *asking* you guys to come here and beat us up over it, there was a strong feeling that the revelation of the delay should at least attempt and hopefully succeed at providing some kind of entertainment value for you.

I realize that some of you feel betrayed by the date change. I'm sorry. I hope I can earn your trust back and whether I do or not I will always be working towards earning it.

But I hope all of you trust that the goal in the video wasn't to make fun of *you*. Besides offering the information regarding the date change, the goal of the video was to make fun of *us*. The purpose in making fun of ourselves was meant to be for your amusement and entertainment. I'm glad to see that it succeeded with many of you.

But ultimately, we screwed up and we're owning up to that. We were wrong about the date.

I was wrong about the date.

I'm sorry.

Try not to take it out on the team too hard. Everyone is working their assess off to make you guys happy.

And try not to take it out on Duke.

You can pull your bets off of me, but ALWAYS Bet on Duke.

Source

It's alright Randy, I still love you! Hail to the best CEO ever!

And btw, he is sorry! ;)

Afro Duke in da house!

2011-03-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

A guy called "Afro" on the GBX forums made a thread called "Duke Nukem Forever multiplayer needs a black Duke Nukem with afro."

But as this was just not funny enough, a creative guy called "Jackhepburn" contributed to the thread with one epic picture....

Another variant of this made by Squebeb:

This is the mentioned thread

If you want to get into the vibe of Bro Nukem watch and listen to this

Duke ready to ship: WARNING sarcasm ahead!

2011-03-18T14:14:00.000-07:00

The Duke in packaging and ready to ship. Available this May. Come Get Some!! http://twitpic.com/4arkj8

Source

Prepare for some sarcastic comments, laughs and nerd rage on the forums about this one...

Epic DNF 2011 tribute

2011-03-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

Check this tribute out: prepare for awesome!

Commando Nukem wrote:

Hey guys,

Chris Bulman (D3drocks) made a new version of Grabbag which, I think, kicks a lot of ass. So, he requested that I do a video to go with the track. It makes use of some of the new one liners and sound effects from the website and the latest footage we've seen thus far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEZ-r7vm7oc&hd=1

The original and totally awesome track can be heard here:
http://soundcloud.com/d3drocks/duke-nukem-2011

Hail to the King, baby!

Source

BBFC reveals DNF goods!

2011-03-17T04:19:00.000-07:00

Source

The classified items include:

- DNF itself of course.

-1998 E3 Trailer.

-2001 E3 Trailer.

-a gameplay video from 2003 which runs 1 minute and 16 seconds.

-another gameplay video from 2006 which runs 1 minute and 14 seconds.

-2007 Christmas teaser.

-Tryptich promo video which runs 2 minutes and 27 seconds.

-a video titled Killed in Action which runs 23 seconds.

-and cutscenes which run 7 minutes in total.

WOW, thats quite meaty info right there. I wonder if the gameplay video from 2003 and 2006 will be hidden in DNF or just be on the DVD. And 7 minutes cutscenes for DNF is not much. But remember DNF is an action game which tells it story through ingame actions. But I do know due to the leaked plot that there probably is a good amount of the 7 minutes at the end of the game.

Funny DNF comic!

2011-03-12T16:13:00.000-08:00

Source

Jace@GBX next Friday on the JHS!!!

2011-03-11T16:48:00.000-08:00

Jace Hall announced in the latest episode of the Jace Hall Show that he will feature exlusive video footage of DNF during his trip down to GBX days ago in the next and final episode of the JHS on Friday March 18.

All audio from the new website

2011-03-10T18:24:00.000-08:00

Want to download all Duke's one-liners from the revamped website and also can't wait to get your hands on the new grabbag.
Get in here:
http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showpost.php?p=2246410&postcount=96

DNF website relaunched!

2011-03-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

Visit dukenukemforever.com and get blown away by awesome! Finally we hear the new grabbag for the first time and it's kinda old school. :)

What George said:

I mean, how many game sites give you an up-skirt shot when you click on Downloads?! :)

Source

nuff said!

EDIT: you should definitely click the community button on the website! Some nice stuff in there!

Jace Hall getting a full on DNF treat

2011-03-07T13:50:00.000-08:00

You should follow Jace Hall's twitter.

SNAP! 6am flight 2 TEXAS 2 PLAY A NEARLY COMPLETE DUKE NUKEM FOREVER IN PRIVATE 2 verify its 1337ness! FollowMyTwitterIfUwantInfo #WARLOCK

Source

He first tweet from GBX:

At GEARBOX checking out DUKE NUKEM FOREVER! I am seeing everything and it is fucken awesome. More tweets soon. #WINNING http://say.ly/HacaX0

Source

UPDATE with more pictures!

Source

DNF cover story in April issue of OXM! MULTIPLAYER REVEAL!!!

2011-02-26T08:57:00.000-08:00

Amazing news. The next issue of OXM will feature a DNF cover story with an exclusive multiplayer reveal!

Our April 2011 issue is on its way out to subscribers! Duke Nukem multiplayer news and Darkness II first-looks! :) http://twitpic.com/43r4cl

Source

I'm hoping to get my hands on that issue as soon as I can. You're welcome to forward it to me too!

DNF@PAX East

2011-02-23T16:53:00.000-08:00

On March 11-13 DNF will be playable at PAX East in Boston.

Read here!

Video interview: Randy justifies Duke

2011-02-23T05:18:00.000-08:00

w atch here

"...Multiplayer is something you need to play..."

2011-02-21T15:45:00.000-08:00

"Multiplayer is something where, in order to 'get' it, we need to figure out a way that people can feel it, because multiplayer's something you need to play."

"You can get some things across in screenshots but not really. So we're kinda struggling with how we expose it so people understand what's there. The proof is in the pudding so to speak, so I don't want to talk about it too much."

"Don't worry about it, we remember why we played Duke and part of that was wanting to get online and shrink you and break you into ice cubes, and so on, and the correct multiplayer experience for Duke Nukem Forever has to pay those things off."

"Some of the interesting questions are what it does beyond that, and that'll be exciting for people to discover and I'm really looking forward to that."

"There's no aim with a multiplayer game like Duke to try to be the next competitive platform – it's about entertainment, it's about fun, it's about getting together with your buddies to talk shit, and using these unique tools to be the best on the battlefield."

SOURCE

2K: DNF@Vegas event vid

2011-02-21T13:20:00.000-08:00

2K released their own DNF@Vegas event vid

Watch here!

There is some interesting music in the video, could it be Jeremy Soul's work?!

VERY special interview coming this week

2011-02-16T18:21:00.000-08:00

2K International tweeted that there are more videos coming later this week, including a VERY special interview.

Did you see our Duke Nukem Forever interview? http://bit.ly/gA3jJl More videos coming later this week... including a VERY special interview!

Source

I would love to see a George B. interview! But I guess it could be anything though. We will see very soon anyway. :)

NECA Duke Nukem figure pictures

2011-02-13T14:15:00.000-08:00

Source

It seems the figure will will be shipped in April. Can't wait to get this bad boy! :)

HD gameplay vids

2011-02-11T08:27:00.000-08:00

ENJOY!

Eurogamer gameplay only

IGN video preview (and its this Iron Sight loving Retard again)

Balls of Steel Edition revealed

2011-02-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

K100 just posted on the duke4.net forums an photo of what looks like the Balls of Steel Edition of DNF!

Source

UPDATE: it's the legit Balls of Steel Edition!

read here

Collection of Titty City event photos

2011-02-08T10:02:00.000-08:00

I tried to hunt down every photo which was taken at the event.
Embrace!

Tomorrow the embargo on articles about the event will lift! Stay tuned for Yatta's experiences and many other gaming press articles!
And don't forget to watch Gametrailers TV this Thursday. All other video previews will go live this Friday.

btw I hate this picture tool in blogspot, it is a mess aligning these pictures in a post!

Duke Nukem's Titty City event BLOG is a go!

2011-02-07T02:22:00.000-08:00

Hey guys and gals,
2K Elizabeth started a blog about the Duke Nukem in Vegas event today.

Tomorrow, at the strike of noon, journalists from around the world will converge on Las Vegas. They are part of an exclusive group who have been invited to Duke Nukem's Titty City in order to take a look at Duke Nukem Forever. Tomorrow's event marks the first time we've shown the game to a large group since its unveiling at PAX Prime in 2010, and we're pulling out all the stops to make the event one to remember.
Currently, we're still putting the final touches on the club ahead of our esteemed visitors arrival - and yes, those TV screens are circling stripper poles. (Where else would we put them?)
I'll be posting more pictures and updates tomorrow from the event itself - so check back here tomorrow for more from Titty City. We'll also be tweeting at www.twitter.com/2kgames with snapshots from the floor. I'll try to answer any questions you may have - but for details on what people are playing here, you won't have to wait long. The embargo for this event lifts Wednesday, February 9th for written previews and Friday, February 11th for video. One thing I know you won't lack this weekend is Duke Nukem Forever.
Hail to the King, baby.

Source

Looks awesome! But it looks like the PAX demo. Maybe we will get a longer demo of the area we saw at PAX and this time in HD?!

Real gameplay for GTTV next week confirmed!

2011-02-05T15:49:00.000-08:00

GTTV's host Geoff Keighley confirmed via twitter what I already expected:

On the next GTTV we'll be premiering real gameplay from Duke Nukem Forever! More details next week.

Source

Prepare for next Thursday guys...awesome incoming!

Another Randy P. interview - but nothing new yet

2011-02-04T11:23:00.000-08:00

computerandvideogames.com have a Rand Pitchford interview on their website. But there is really nothing new in there just the old stuff differently worded.
If you look forward to new media wait for the outcome of the Duke in Vegas event on monday and GT TV next thursday! :) There is plenty to look forward too. :)
I will keep you covered!

read here

DNF@Gametrailers TV CONFIRMED!

2011-02-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

The next episode of Gametrailers TV airing on Feb. 10th will feature DNF! oOo Can't wait!!!

Duke Nukem & Madden Bowl
Cool-hand Duke finally returns, and we celebrate his triumphant arrival with an early look at Duke Nukem Forever.

Source

NEW DNF cover story in UK XBOX360 magazine

2011-02-01T05:26:00.000-08:00

The latest Issue of UK's XBOX360 magazine has got a 4 pages DNF preview and a 6 pages Duke history Pitchford interview

Here is an excerpt of the interview:

"People are trying to make complex, moody personalities... and Duke is almost fresh in being this absurdly one-dimensional kind of guy," he said in an interview with 360 Magazine.
"A lot of the games we're playing now are quite alike in terms of mood, theme and atmosphere," continued Pitchford. "That made it clear to me that Duke is really going to stand out."

Source

I will try to buy this issue here when its uploaded there. You can also download it via itunes shop when it's there.

Duke to be dubbed by German voice of Bruce Willis! WTF!

2011-01-23T14:06:00.000-08:00

Source

Wie Golem.de erfahren hat, wird der Schauspieler Manfred Lehmmann - unter anderem die deutsche Stimme von Bruce Willis - den Duke synchronisieren.

The actor Manfred Lehmann - e.g. the German voice o Bruce Willis - will dub the Duke!

As much as I like Bruce Willis voice, for me only Jon St. John is capable of speaking the Duke!

More First Access Club for your viewing pleasure!

2011-01-21T12:40:00.000-08:00

DNF coming May 3th and trailer is a go!

2011-01-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

http://www.dukenukemforever.com/

Best day in the history of DNF!

IT BEGINS...DNF nuclear bomb incoming!!!

2011-01-21T03:42:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen,

it is an honor to say that in a few hours hell will break loose! What it is we don't know yet...but it will have an impact that we can't imagine right now! But believe me it will shake the internet!

Epic Randy Pitchford tease:

I would check www.gameinformer.com first thing in the morning. There might be something extremely interesting there.

George jumps on the hype train

@DuvalMagic tweets word that www.gameinformer.com may have interesting news first thing in the morning. Hmmmm...

It all connects! Like said in an earlier newspost GBX markteting guys WERE in Minneapolis visiting Gameinformer magazine. And I would bet it is for a DNF cover story with all new info and media.

Also Mikey Neumann visited Gametrailers TV and G4TV probably to bring them a DNF trailer and get everything prepared for the release on their websites.

Today was insanity. Sold a webshow, dropped some dialog recording, went to G4 and Gametrailers back to back. Relaxing in the hotel now.

I will post a news about what was released in a few hours...:) But first I have classes. :( DAMN!

DN3D: Reloaded in PC GAMER US February 2011 issue

2011-01-20T15:10:00.000-08:00

If you are an US citizen you might be interestesd in purchasing the latest PC Gamer issue.

You can expect a full DN3D: Reloaded preview

Here is a tease for it being real:

Is GBX trying to cover the tracks?!

2011-01-19T17:50:00.000-08:00

I made this thread in the GBX forums:

Some birdy told us in the forums that there was a teaser for the upcoming trailer set up for release today. This teaser was also shown during the GBX/2K meetings some days ago. Apparently Randy stopped the release of the teaser to the internet with his Duke ain't a tease anymore attitude. Also there seem to be some works in the forum backgrounds that are kinda major.
Anyhow, even if the birdy didn't told the truth (which I think is not the case) we will see a video of DNF until February!
Lets see if I will be right. :)
And feel free to quote me. :)

You might wonder why the post the birdy posted is gone. It was deleted by Joe Siegler (probably).

So either GBX is trying to cover the tracks or the birdy was just lying! The interesting fact is that my thread is still open (and it has become a damn funny one...just see the Randy P. pics).
My theory is that the birdy told us the truth and GBX doesn't want to get that info leaked to not spoil the surprise. They just let my thread open for a while to get us interested or just for the laughs. :P

2K advertising DNF

2011-01-18T17:03:00.000-08:00

Gamestop DNF promo sign incoming!!!

Source

Something is cooking in LA and Minneapolis

2011-01-18T16:45:00.000-08:00

Speculation time...

Something is cooking in Minnesota and LA.

GBX's PR and Marketing guy Adam Fletcher said this via twitter:

It's 11 degrees still in Minneapolis. -2 Wind Chill. It's so cold that the hotel room heaters struggle to keep rooms above 65. Insane!

So Adam F. is definitely in Minneapolis right now!

Lets see who's next. It's GBX vice president Steve Gibson and here is what he had to say via twitter:

I am having some serious doubts right now about my judgement for agreeing to fly to Minnesota in f***in January

So Steve Gibson definitely is in Minnesota too. It would only make sense if he is in Minneapolis too.

So two high-profile GBX employee's flying to the same city around the same time (only a few hours space between their tweets)!

This leads to high-end speculation. I couldn't find any sort of gaming event, or convention taking place in Minneapolis in the near future. But according to a GBX forum member called PredatorFL nothing else than GAME INFORMER is located in Minneapolis! Could be a good guess! We will see if it was true. :)

Now on to the LA cooking...

GBX's Mikey Neumann is LA bound:

Plane to LA delayed. *grumble* Gonna get in extra late tonight, it would appear.

a few hours later:

On a plane. Bored. Entertain me if you would be so kind. Who wants to play hangman? It's a movie. _ _ _ R _ A _ _

and 5 hours ago:

Marathon recording session with a very talented actor. Today, off to a good start. In other news: I need a nap.

And guess who this talented actor could be. Jon St. John's studios are located in San Diego AND LA.

Well even if it's not Jon, LA is full of actors. Mikey Neumann is probably recording voice for DNF thats sure! :)

I smell something happening in the very near future! End of January/ early February here we come!
HYPE TRAIN IS ON!

No indication of DNF in PC Gamer

2011-01-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

The preview page for the February issue of PC Gamer doesn't mention Duke at all. But the article about DN3D: Reloaded probably wasn't as important enough to be put in the preview text. The cover story of the Feb. issue is Deus Ex: Human Revolution. As soon as I get hold of it I will post a small glimse of the DN3D: Reloaded article to advertise it a bit.

Jon St. John panel@Magfest 9

2011-01-17T06:34:00.000-08:00

Watch the one hour Jon St. John panel at Magfest 9!

Here and here.

From minute 14th onwards Jon plays a new DNF one liner from his Ipad:

'Power-armor is for pussies and you're one ugly mothfucker'

Also he reveals the forename of the writer for the DNF one-liners. Her name is ?Christine?

Later Jon also sings the Balls of Steel song.

Most importantly right at the end of part 1 Jon asks the crowd to turn off the cameras because there was an interesting question asked which Jon answered with an confidential comment which was probably too hot to record.

Thanks to DoctorX from the GBX forums for providing the links!

UPDATE:

the guy who the filmed the video replied this to me:

I will only say that the comment in question has NOTHING to do with Duke Nukem Forever.

One youtube comment says this:

for anyone who doesn't want to watch through the whole thing, he asked for camera's to turn off so he could say a line that was cut from the DNF script that was too "politically incorrect"

DNF in PC Gamer Feb. Issue?!

2011-01-15T13:36:00.000-08:00

There is a 50/50 chance of DNF being featured in the Feb. Issue of UK PC Gamer!

You decide if the Duke promo pic is pictured because of the #49. The Duke Nukem Forever Award for Being Duke Nukem Forever: Half-Life 2: Episode 3

or it's part of the Feb. Issue preview!

UPDATE: Frederik 'Fresch' Schreiber confirmed that there is indeed the Duke in the next PC Gamer issue, but DN3D: Reloaded. Either PC Gamer used the DNF promo pic to promote their Reloaded article in the next issue or there is both Reloaded and DNF.

Either way, we will get our DNF news in two weeks nonetheless. :)

It Begins...

2011-01-13T08:52:00.000-08:00

Not only 2K Elizabeth is at GBX right now working on some big stuff but even Joe Siegler was ordered for a meeting to GBX today!

I also asked Elizabeth via twitter if she has some hints for me and she replied:

i can tell you one thing for certain: it 0wns.

Prepare for TOTAL OWNAGE in early February the latest! I expect some hints being leaked before though!
This truly is history in the making!

Swag and News@Magfest

2011-01-11T06:35:00.000-08:00

Our beloved Jon St. John has promised DNF swag and news for the upcoming Magfest starting this thursday!

Ready to party your a** off at MAGfest? I can't wait. Got some cool DNF swag and news to share. See you in Alexandria on Thursday!

Source

Swag and news, Swag and news oh we love our swag and news!

More DNF info in Late January / Early February

2011-01-07T01:14:00.000-08:00

According to Kaisersoze who got the latest issue of EGM there is a new Randy P. interview in it! The best part is that Randy promises more DNF info for Late January / Early February!

Here is the link to the Duke4.net news, and there is also a forum discussion about the topic linked in the article.

I smell the trailer with a release date coming! Also Kaisersoze is on to something! January 29 is a Saturday aka weekend, Monday is January 31. I bet they will either have one guy spending some time on his weekend at GBX HQ preparing the trailer for all major gaming websites and Youtube to release, or wait until Monday/Tuesday aka 31/1 when the boys are back at GBX HQ!

Can't wait for end of January!

Jon St. John aka Duke Nukem to be at MagFest again!

2011-01-06T06:23:00.000-08:00

Jon St. John will be at MagFest 9 from January 13-16!!!
Remember that he told us to read between the lines at the last MagFest last January! With DNF being revealed now stay tuned for hopefully some meatier info and ?media? :)

Check out this MagFest Duke Nukem promo video!
And Jon's twitter too!

Speculation time: DNF on May 31?

2010-12-29T22:34:00.000-08:00

The famous Kaisersoze posted this via GBX forums:

May 31, 2011 hits on a Tuesday= new release day.
Major Nelson tweeted this new date via an Amazon
link. Amazon originally had a February release date.

Did 2k/Gearbox finalize the release date and slip the
info out?

George also posted another picture of pigs on his Twitter the same day
this new date was posted.

There might be some fire somewhere in this smoke.

Good release date for the game to kick off the summer.

Stay Tuned?

Source

I would like to add the links to the sources he talks about!

MajorNelson via Twitter:
Source

GeorgeB3DR via Twitter:
Source

DNF will definitely be out in the first half of 2011!!!

2010-12-29T05:56:00.000-08:00

Well I asked Randy and some marketing guys when they were on the ass side of the planet and it doesn't get more official than that. Regarding the release date, what they told me was that the February release date was not something that came from them - strangely they did defend shops making up such dates to grab sales, but oh well. The marketing guy said DNF is slated for an early 2011 release, when I asked for reconfirmation, he said that perhaps he should rephrase that and say it should definitely be out in the first half of 2011.

Source

Merry Christmas to my visitors!

2010-12-23T05:59:00.000-08:00

Although there seems to be no x-mas gift from Duke this year,

i'll still like to wish you a merry christmas and lots of gifts and love!

The German release date Connection

2010-12-12T15:46:00.000-08:00

Gamestop.com has taken the Feb. 1 release date down. So now DNF hasn't got any release date there!

But interestingly the German website Gamestop.de lists DNF with an April 15 release date!

According to my older news post about the leaked Gamestop release list DNF is listed for an April 15 release date.

I bet very soon Gamestop.com will list DNF for the April 15 too!
So the leaked release list is a valid Gamestop list! The only question is if the list itself isn't made up by Gamestop with space holder release dates.

Please write your thoughts in the comment section!

UPDATE:

According to a source that works for Gamestop the April 15 sounds real to him. This is what he had to say:

Actually, Gamestop doesn't list any specific release date until they get the official go-ahead from their suppliers. Therefore their TBA release dates are (confusingly) usually the last or first date of a month. So specific ones like this April 15th is sounding good to me.

Obviously, anything is subject to change but I'm liking the sound of this. Means it's going to be released on a Friday here in Europe.
(I'll check my networks at work tomorrow to see if there's any change in the release dates but I doubt it)

Source

UPDATE 2

The list seems to be fake! Follow the discussion in where we came to this conclusion in here: http://forums.duke4.net/index.php?s=&showtopic=3082&view=findpost&p=65940

Jace doesn't stop the tease!

2010-12-10T16:24:00.000-08:00

Trip mine + pig cop = explosive kamikaze pig cop FTW!

Footage starts at 5:50

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJdKrwpQP-8

"DNF won't be shown during the 2010 Spike VGAs"

2010-12-06T14:36:00.000-08:00

Just so we're all clear, Duke Nukem Forever won't be shown during the 2010 Spike VGAs. Yes, the game is progressing on schedule and yes, more of will be shown in the near future, but both the game and its fans have been teased enough across the years. The next time we "bring it," as Duke himself would say, it will be something a bit more significant than a thirty-second television clip.

Source

I'm out of words....major disappointment here!
I even dare to say now there WON'T BE ANY Duke at christmas at all!

Over and out...

UPDATE:

2k Elizabeth thickens my guess!

I don't have a time frame for you guys yet or any special details

Source

NOT EVEN A FREAKING TIMEFRAME?! This christmas will be a sad one!

UPDATE #2:

Joe Siegler on the GBX forums:

The end of the tunnel is near.

Always bet on Duke!

Source

Leaked DNF release date?!

2010-12-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

Source

So DNF will release on April 15 2011?!

Not sure if this list is valid, because Deus Ex: Human Revolution is listed for June 15! The last time I checked it was still February 2011. Also I Am Alive on January 15 is highly unlikely! We haven't heard anything on it in quite some time!

History of the promises on more info

2010-12-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

On November 1 I posted this video on the GBX forums where Randy says:

GBX will announce VERY SOON a more specific release date!!! Randy doesn't know how soon but it won't be long!

This video was captured around October, so aprox. 2 months have past by now without any news.

On November 17 Chris F. a new GBX community manager posted the "Vote Duke! Spike Opens Most Anticipated Game Submissions" thread.One day later he replied in the same thread to the criticism about the lack of hype and media for the game:

Rest assured, Duke Nukem Forever is quite real. The game is progressing on schedule. We let thousands play it at PAX 2010. All the guys and gals involved can't wait to show more of it, and that time is fast approaching. I know it's been a tough wait, but there is a plan, things are in the works, and the second I can say more about when those things are coming, you'll be the first to know. I realize you don't know me all that well quite yet, but I think you'll be happy soon. Heck, that's part of why I was brought on here at Gearbox in the first place!

http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showpost.php?p=2147208&postcount=23

Then on Nov 24 Adam F. the Webmaster and PR guy at GBX replied to the cover art thread with:

"Soon. Soon..."

http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showpost.php?p=2151333&postcount=11

And the latest promise comes from 2K Elizabeth who had this to say:

But seriously, it's coming. I promise. I'm actually talking to Gearbox RIGHT NOW on my other monitor. It's good stuff.

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?98601-We-need-new-info!&p=1291229#post1291229

It just has to be the Video Game Awards on Dec 11, this or Christmas!

DN3D: Reloaded website online!!!

2010-11-25T14:13:00.000-08:00

The amazing in the making DN3D: Reloaded has it's website online! Go check it out and also listen to their podcast!
These guys pull something GREAT off!

http://www.dukenukemreloaded.com/

Become a fan @Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Duke-Nukem-3D-Reloaded/108271955905267

Media unleash is "fast approaching"

2010-11-18T06:19:00.000-08:00

Rest assured, Duke Nukem Forever is quite real. The game is progressing on schedule. We let thousands play it at PAX 2010. All the guys and gals involved can't wait to show more of it, and that time is fast approaching. I know it's been a tough wait, but there is a plan, things are in the works, and the second I can say more about when those things are coming, you'll be the first to know. I realize you don't know me all that well quite yet, but I think you'll be happy soon. Heck, that's part of why I was brought on here at Gearbox in the first place!

Source

I smell the trailer coming at VGA's on Dec 11 or maybe around Dec 17 like 3DR did the past 3 years! Time to set our Duke-schedule!

XBOX World Cover Story

2010-11-13T19:04:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Mr. Green of Duke4.net for providing the scans of the latest issue of XBOX World featuring another cover story of the already known demo!

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GBX "only" paid 20 million for the DN franchise?!

2010-11-08T08:50:00.000-08:00

In this interview Randy says the following:

I'll tell you what, imagine you had $20 million, and you could use that to invest in any brand or any concept in the entire industry. Whether it's an existing brand or even something you even helped come up with. Imagine if you had that. I think that a lot of us who work in the industry might decide that Duke Nukem Forever is on the very risky end of the entire spectrum. So yes, of course those thoughts crossed the mind. But also, when you're in that moment, talking about that analogy, if you let that thought deter you from doing what you know is the right thing and also what you know your heart is telling you to do, you'll probably regret that for the rest of your life. And I don't live my life with any regrets, and the reason is because of the decisions I make.

It's not 100% sure that GBX really paid 20 million for the DN franchise but Randy is very much indicating it. If so 3D Realms basically got the amount of money back they invested in the last 13 years. To be more precise, it was stated in the past that George Broussard himself has invested about 20-30 million into the project.

If this story is true George Broussard actually didn't earn anything! George and Randy are friends so I would call that a deal between friends!

Personally I would say 20 million for the DNF franchise is not enough, though I'm aware of the fact that DN didn't had a good selling game in years. But I do bet on a DN franchise value that will be at least the double amount when DNF has shipped!

Pachter: "DNF will sell at least 3 million!"

2010-11-06T19:00:00.000-07:00

Now with "The Pach" himself clarifying that DNF will be a massive hit, DNF will prevail! There is no more denial!

direct download: http://uploaded.to/file/8338zq

stream: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/episode-139-pach-attack/707095

PC Gamer DNF cover story

2010-11-06T16:02:00.000-07:00

It's the third time PC Gamer (US) made a DNF cover story. And this time DNF will definitely come out next year! AWESOME!

If you want to know what PC Gamer have seen, just read for yourself! There is some small but nice new info in it! Also I would like to thank the anonymous source that provided me the scans! (sorry for the low quality) :)

ENJOY! :)

Jace Hall Show keeps on teasing with DNF

2010-11-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

There is more DNF footage in the latest Jace Hall Show episode.
See it for yourself at 6:01 - 6:08

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2010/11/05/the-jace-hall-show-season-4-episode-2

Tiny (but bloody) DNF footage in new Jace Hall Show season

2010-10-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

Tune in at 1:10 - 1:24 and 3:47 - 4:05 to see the DukeED in action and see a pigcop loosing it's extremities!
This game is fucking gory for real! If this level of dismemberment is also featured with humans this game will be make look SOF look like Kindergarten! :o

http://uk.ign.com/videos/2010/10/29/the-jace-hall-show-season-4-episode-1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3ubPcnJ-dU

Gamestar DNF Cover Story

2010-10-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

Hey guys I present you the full coverage of the German DNF cover story! The first part is about Duke Nukem's history, the one we already know and the second part about the demo which again doesn't contain any new info! But the third part is the interview and it's quite fun to read! I will translate it very soon, so stay tuned for an exclusive reveal of a smal interactivity thingy, something in the likes of the turd in the toilet! :D

UPDATE: PC Games DNF Cover Story + English translation of the interview

2010-10-26T07:34:00.000-07:00

As I already thought there is no new information in the cover story itself, cause it's based on the DNF Munich event! But there is also an quite long interview with Randy that has some interesting insights!
I will translate the interview in a few hours...stay tuned!
Until then enjoy the visuals of the cover story! :)

UPDATE!!!

Full translation of the German interview:

PC Games:

Last year after 3DR closed its doors there was a lot of DNF material that was leaked on the internet and we have the feeling that we already know everything about the game. Can you tell us anything new?

Pitchford:

Oh there is a lot! Last year there were a few things that were leaked, some of them are important, but these are only very tiny sections and with them we couldn’t even start to tell the story.

What we do right now: we are confronted with fans that are in shock and awe that the project yet even exists. Maybe I can tell more when you ask more concrete questions.

PC Games:

Do you have altered the plot (that already has been leaked) since last year to keep it interesting?

Pitchford:

About 2 years ago George Broussard and Allan Blum took all what they had so far and conceived a new story about Duke. The result was something that I personally think is brilliant, and that’s the plot we follow. The story is: 12 years after the prequel… no let me put it this way: Duke Nukem’ s world is a little bit like our world. It is similar but not the same; it’s a twisted variant of our world, almost like a chamber of mirrors with its distorting mirror’s.

PC Games:

Maybe like our world should be?

Pitchford:

That would be great! In Las Vegas for example there is the famous Hotel ‘The Bellagio’. In Duke’s version of Las Vegas there is the hotel that looks very similar to the Bellagio and located at about the same place but it’s called the Fellatio. And Fellatio means blow-job. And you know what? In his world this makes sense! Instead of ignoring that the game is in the works for 12 years, the game picks this situation up. So in the game 12 years has passed since the happenings in the prequel. Duke Nukem is probably the most important person in the universe. He saved the world, he is the richest guy on the planet and he is super successful and famous. Everything he touches turns to gold. He is just an amazing guy with a great life. I don’t know if you have already seen it: when you start the game there is this scene with this huge cyclops in the football-stadium that you have to fight against. By the way: that is the last level of DN3D, but as a next gen remake. When you have killed the colossus the camera drives back and you see that the fight only has been taking place on your screen and Duke just has been playing his own video game. So he saved the world and it took 12 fucking years until his videogame has been released and he says: after 12 years it better be good! And while he plays the game, he is been entertained by 2 women at once which knee before him: only the Duke can have so much luck!

PC Games:

So…yes or no: does it is the same plot, which has been leaked last year?

Pitchford:

The plot is a little bit different.

PC Games:

How would you describe the game to someone that never heard about Duke Nukem before?

Pitchford:

Duke Nukem is an action game, an ego-shooter. It shows a twisted version of our world but it’s our world, it has a lot to do with humor and the plot is about aliens trying to steal our chicks to breed an extraterrestrial-army. And the Duke can’t let this happen and becomes this one man that has to stop the whole alien race and save our babes. From the standpoint of design it’s an ego-shooter with an interesting pace that changes often between fast action sequences and exploration just like environment puzzles with a slow tempo…a little bit like Half-Life 2. And from this varied game design there are a few properties deflected: one of them is interactivity. There are many objects in the game world you can experiment with, that are interactive and at one time react like you would expect and sometime it makes sense but it’s also surprising and fun. Another element are the secrets. Small hidden things which you can discover, although it hasn’t got anything to do with the game. So much for the design. The style is placed somewhere near reality but everything is over the top and caricatured in Duke’s world. Sure, his world is a caricature of our world.

PC Games:

How big is the pressure to be the studio that will bring DNF after all these years on the market?

Pitchford:

There is a looot of pressure. It’s pretty intimidating. But I tell you this: pressure is something I can handle. Our first GBX game was Half-Life: Opposing Force. We had to continue to develop Half-Life; we also were the first to do that. We already sensed how something like that felt. But we did it and we had fun while doing so and we delivered the best result and the people liked it. Then we helped Microsoft and Bungie to port the part of the code that made Halo connecting with the internet and we also had to bring the game to the platforms for that it was once announced for. There was a lot of pressure too. But also here: we are giving our bests and the people were liking it. Actually there is this sell-overview for North-America the so called NPD-sales, which says that Halo for Windows PC’s was the best sold Ego-Shooter ever. So we had pressure many times but we always got along with it quite well and now we are giving our best again. But this here is something completely new. There probably is no game in the history that is connected with such deep strains like Duke Nukem.

PC Games:

Does it feel like your game? Or are there 3D-Realms areas and GBX-areas? And how do you make it a GBX game?

Pitchford:

It feels like a 3D Realms game to me. Our input thereto: we help the dream and the vision become reality. And that’s what I want as a gamer too. At this point I don’t want to ‘gearbox’ the game; I want the game that was promised to me but that I haven’t got yet. And I feel lucky to be in a position to decide and assure that we get this game.

PC Games:

What’s up with the multiplayer?

Pitchford:

Oh yes, there is a multiplayer part! How could it be that there is none? Just because we haven’t talked about it yet? I wouldn’t have the feeling to do it right if we let out the multiplayer part. We haven’t talked about it but it’s great and huge. Although the game is a new game it has to rely on its roots. There has to be appropriate part of fan service and also it has to be a new game. We also have to take in account that Half-Life and Call of Duty are already belonging to the everyday life of gamers.

PC Games:

What is your favorite Duke one liner from the old and new game?

Pitchford:

From the old one: I’ve got balls of steel! The reason why I like this one so much is: in the new game there is a pin-ball machine. Someone must have spent more than a year only building this pin-ball machine. You can interact with it, everything works as you expect it to be, and it’s a great Duke Nukem pin-ball machine. You as the player even get an ego boost as soon as you play with it. I have played with the machine and totally failed. When I dropped the ball, Duke said: ‘I’ve got balls of fail’! And this one I loved! The old one twisted in a new context. (In another interview Randy says he almost shit/pissed himself when he heard the ‘I’ve got balls of fail’ one liner!)

PCGames:

What will the USK think of DNF?

Pitchford:

I think the ‘muck stuff’ won’t be a problem in Germany, because it quite open minded different to America. It’s the violence that concerns us in your country. Here in North-America it’s the complete opposite: you can shoot of heads all day long but if you show a nipple you’re going to hell. The country was founded by puritans that worry about sex a lot after all. In Germany you worry more about violence. (Randy stands up and looks out for a line on the ground and dances on it) Some games are beyond the border, some are on this side of the border but DNF dances on that line. We don’t want to cross the line…

PC Games:

But we just kicked an eye-ball through a field goal!

Pitchford:

But it was an extraterrestrial eye-ball. We dance on the line and I hope that it will be okay to move this border a bit. From time to time- and that is important I think with media and entertainment – something comes along that shakes at the borders. And often we only know then where the borders actually are. Sometimes the borders move a little bit. If we are lucky the Duke will be this kind of game that moves the borders a little bit.

PC Games:

Would you cut the game to get it released in Germany?

Pitchford:

[Avoiding] I think it would be sad if Germans couldn’t get the game and I also don’t want to break laws or something. I would like to wish that German gamers would rise to protest and telling their government that they want to kick out extraterrestrial eye-balls dammit! But I know it’s hard. I guess that German gamers that don’t want to play cut games always find a way around. But it’s hard to move within this system – when it comes to compability, DLC’s, XBOX-Live and all this stuff. That’s really frustrating. Our options: not change anything and selling the game only in a small market (no Wal-Mart) or to play by the rules. We don’t make the rules, your government does it. Tell you government that this has to change!

Cover of Gamestar and PCGames

2010-10-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

A sneak peak of the PCGames and Gamestar DNF cover story's

Duke promo pic

2010-10-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

You thought the Duke promo pic used e.g. as the cover of the 'Games Aktuell' looks awesome?!

Click into the pic to get the HD one =)

Source

First German 'pseudo' Cover Story!

2010-10-22T14:13:00.000-07:00

'Games Aktuell' has DNF as their cover story! But it is just a cover story based on the already shown 'PAX Demo' and a Randy Pitchford interview. The article makes one think 'Games Aktuell' was at GBX HQ in Dallas, but I got the impression they just saw DNF at the DNF Munich Event. Also there is no new information revealed!
IN OTHER NEWS: the new PC Games and Gamestar will have a DNF cover story based on a exclusive report, so they say. :) STAY TUNED for my scans next Wednesday!

DNF one-liner revealed!

2010-10-14T09:09:00.000-07:00

In this intervierw Jon St. John reveals a new one-liner for DNF!

It's a homage to 'I'll rip off your head and shit down your neck!'

here it is: 'I'll rip out your eyeball and piss on your brain!'

EPIC Classyness! :D

Fun: Duke in 2040!

2010-10-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

Source

DNF demo for the public will be a different!

2010-10-08T23:09:00.000-07:00

Steve Gibson Vice President of Marketing at Gearbox confirmed in a recent interview with 'Digital Spy' that the DNF demo for the internet will be a different to the one recently shown at the press events! Horay!!!
Further good news are that the multiplayer part will be presented to the press in an upcoming event soon.

Source

Germans and Austrians get DNF Early Access Club too

2010-10-07T12:15:00.000-07:00

2K Germany just told me that the German and Austrian Versions of Borderlands GOTY will include the DNF Early Access Club 'token' too!

Gearbox behind the scenes

2010-10-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Here is a preview for the behind the scenes footage at Gearbox coming up soon.

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/707955/Creators-of-Borderlands-and-Duke-Nukem-Forever-Go-Behind-the-Scenes.html

Mikey Neumann confirms DNF release for EARLY 2011 !!!!

2010-09-26T05:05:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen GOOD NEWS!

During episode 100 of the Avault Podcast Gearbox' Mikey Neumann' confirms at 35:41 that DNF will get a EARLY 2011 release! AWESOME!!!

Hear it for yourselves:
Source

UPDATE!
Amazon.com has changed the release date of DNF to February 1, the same date that gamestop.com lists. Suspicious in the latest events. I guess we can expect DNF to be released on that date or sometime around it. You can quote me on this, DNF release sometime between mid of January until March.

Duke continues to come up with 'Duke definitions'

2010-09-26T04:25:00.000-07:00

Still not a fan of Duke on Facebook? Do it now and spread the word or he will kick your ass!
So you remember the cool and funny Duke definitions? Duke came up with a new one.

Duke definition: Blockbuster -- A new street cleaning weapon that sounds friggin fun. But if I don't return it after 2 days, it'll stop working. Don't get some.

Source

'Monday Monday' and 'Invaders Must Die' featured in the DNF trailer

2010-09-25T05:44:00.000-07:00

I read some days ago as far as I remember on Duke4.net the comments of a PAX attendee who recalled his experience and he mentioned that the hippie hymne 'monday monday' from the Mamas and Papas will be one of the songs featured in the trailer. Another song is 'invaders must die' by The Prodigy.
To get some feeling how the music in the new trailer goes. Listen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ku6gagYh80
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfUuHQF9lVs

I say awesome!

DNF will be in the new season of Jace Hall Show

2010-09-22T04:57:00.000-07:00

Jace teases DNF surprises at the upcoming Jace Hall Show starting in early or late October!

Listen to 9:20-10:02

The best video-interview so far

2010-09-19T16:45:00.000-07:00

Randy Pitchford was interviewed by Giant Bombs's Jeff Gerstmann. Gerstmann does great interviews in general and this one is probably one of his best and funniest, thanks to Randy and Duke!

Watch here!

DNF pre-order now available!

2010-09-16T15:04:00.000-07:00

According to dukenukemforever.com DNF is now officialy available for pre-order at Amazon and GameStop!

Amazon

GameStop

Duke4.net interviews Scott Miller

2010-09-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

Very cool exclusive interview!

Read here