It's been more than a decade since Duke Nukem Forever was revealed, but years have passed, and we've heard little about 3DRealms' highly anticipated project. Rumors that played from technological problems to loss of interest soon plagued the game, and it became apparent that ol' Duke was soon to be disintegrated by time. The developer has lately maintained that the project was back on track, but where's the proof? We tell you right now, the proof is right here. A warning though: the embedded video auto-plays on load.

We've just managed to pick up a couple of more screenshots for 3D Realm's upcoming Duke Nukem Forever title.

While they won't really give us much details to go on for the moment, they should at least tide us over until beefier info comes our way. The pics are available in the full article.

Funny how the past catches up pretty quick with a game popularly pegged "forever-in-development." News from the press waves has just filled us in to a deal that happened between Take-Two Interactive and GT Interactive which evidently granted the rights of publishing Duke Nukem Forever to the holders of the 2K Games brand. More at the full story.

Duke Nukem Forever was often thought to be a PC-only release, since it was to be the true successor of the then-PC catalyst for LAN partying, time-killing, and bad-mouthing - the revolutionary Duke Nukem 3D. But it seems 3DRealms has newer plans laid out for the next installment, and it's likely to spread some Christmas cheer to all. 3DRealms CEO Scott Miller spills some delight at the full story.

A decade since the initial announcement of the development of Duke Nukem Forever, and 3D Realms now releases the game's latest video trailer. It's no small matter to say we've waited a very, very long time for this teaser, which shows us glimpses of how the Duke's been doing all these years. The video's available over in the full article.

Independent game developer Paleo Entertainment has announced the licensing of Crytek's powerful CryENGINE 2 for a new first-person shooter game, Merchants of Brooklyn. Centering around the mobsters of New York, the game has upped the CryENGINE 2 licensing tally to three, solidifying the beginning of the next-generation gaming era for the PC.

 

Troy Latimer, President of the San Diego-based developer studio, found that CryENGINE 2 was unmatched in ease and quality, after a careful weighing of third-party and first-party options. And for their ambitious FPS centered around a new intellectual property, the choice to CryENGINE 2's physics and rendering was the only way to create "the kind of AAA quality game" they were aiming for. He continued:

We can immediately begin to move forward with prototyping our game, secure in the knowledge the engine will be able to handle everything we need, while the tools will give us the creative freedom to build the kind of next generation game no one has been able to make until now.

Early concept art for the game has been unveiled with the official press release, which hints at the developer's direction in art and mood. Couple that with Crysis' tear-welling renders, you could be sure that Merchants of Brooklyn will be critically anticipated in the PC gaming community, together with the likes of Duke Nukem Forever and Unreal Tournament 3.

WeMade Entertainment was the first third-party to license CryENGINE 2 for an upcoming MMO-RTS hybrid entitled NED, the first third-party title to step into next-generation PC gaming. Avatar Reality was second to sign up for their massively multiplayer virtual world set in terraformed Mars.

Get a preview of the early concept artwork for the game at Full Article.

 

The reason why Electronic Arts will miss its estimated profits for this fiscal year? Well other than the wider quarterly loss, it's because an anticipated game won't be coming out, at least not until this current fiscal year ends by March 2008. The anticipated game that is delayed? Spore.

A Reuters report notes that EA has said that it was no longer counting on revenue from Spore for this fiscal year. What's worse is that EA adds that the game could be delayed until fiscal 2009.

A lot of hopeful folks are now screaming "NOOOO..." A lot of the more cynical ones are making jokes about the game being bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.

So sad, this is.

In an interview over at YouGamers, Scott Miller, founder of Apogee (now known as 3DRealms), assures that Duke Nukem Forever is being worked on. Yes folks, despite the game being treated as a punchline, and being used as an epitome of vaporware, Miller says that it's been resurrected, and in Eugene Huang of GamePro's words: making good progress.

It's nice to note that 3D Realms takes full blame for the delay. Here's Miller's words:

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

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

The game is reportedly in full development and has a 33 man team working on it. Publishing wise, Take-Two Interactive has inherited 3D Realms' original agreement with GT Interactive back in the 90s. Miller notes that the original agreement does allow them to sell the game directly through an online digital service, and that they plan to do so.

Yes, they're taking forever, but at least they're admitting they messed up. So yeah, they're taking criticism pretty well. In fact Miller even has a favourite Duke Nukem Forever joke here's him talking about it: "It's hard to resist the cold, cruel, but true: Duke Nukem Taking Forever. My two sons, in particular, love to slam me with this one."

They plan to bring DNF to multiple platforms. However, Miller has refrained from noting which ones.

 

It's interesting, when pieced together indications begin to make sense. Take for example Duke4.net's speculation that Jeremy and Julian Soule, whose works have been brought to your surround sound speakers in Bethesda Softworks' The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and 3D Realms' Prey, have been working with 3D Realms on their title "forever in development," Duke Nukem Forever for the PC (and maybe the Xbox 360?).

Perhaps not so "forever in development" anymore, the indication of this little hope stems out from the fact that the common game development paradigm puts soundtrack development at the end of the development cycle. Alongside, bug fixing and voice overs, the music composition and integration signals that a game could be already in the polishing stages. Three letters people: OMG.

As reported, 3D Realms creative director Raphael Van Lierop once blogged about Julian Soule's visit to 3D Realms on March 1, 2007, a Thursday. In his own words, he wrote:

On Thursday of last week, Julian Soule visited the offices to hang out. The Soule brothers had composed the soundtrack for Prey and Julian had stopped by to just do some relationship building stuff, and to stop by to say hello to his good friend (and 3DR's audio director) Jeron Moore.

While the his claim could be dismissible as relatively true, an IGN Insider-only interview had Julian Soule reveal what else he has been working on. Here's the last bit of that exclusive interview:

[IGN Insider]: Are you working on any projects right now? What can we expect to hear from you in the near future?
[Jeremy Soule]: Well, I'll leave one hint..."When it's done!!!"

After Amazon sneaking around with Duke Nukem Forever pre-orders, we got dibs on the possibility that his answer wasn't just a coincidence folks.

Very little is known about the currently tagged as vaporware game Duke Nukem Forever. For one, the release date is still: "when it's done," and the the folks at the ever-so-shadowy 3D Realms are pretty mum about the game. All we've got at the moment is this screenie:

 

After ten years of almost nothing, the above screenshot shows up in a Gamasutra jobs posting for a programming position at 3D Realms. The image then gets discussed to death over at the Shacknews forums, and then gets a massive promotion over at GameTrailers.

Before you folks decry this screen as a fake, please be aware that Georte Broussard, co-creator of the franchise confirmed that this is indeed an in-game image. Sadly the image doesn't reveal much about the game play. It only has Duke's Arnie-inspired mug on it.

As inconclusive as this all is, what we're still wondering about is why this image didn't show up in job listing at the 3D Realms site, and yet showed up in the Gamasutra job listing. Either they did this to tease, or somebody slipped. Of course that's just us speculating and getting ahead of ourselves.

The game is said to be set for a release on the Xbox 360 and the PC. We hope that it won't take ten more years for us to get more info on this game.