Duke Nukem Forever: 12 Years in the Making

If there is one game that the entire gaming community thought would never actually come out, it was "Duke Nukem Forever." The game was – and arguably still is – a sequel to the very old game "Duke Nukem 3D," a classic in the FPS genre. However, after about a dozen years in development mire, constantly being reworked from scratch, it came to the point where the prevalent thought among gamers that are old enough to remember is that DNF was "going to take forever to come out." Indeed, the story of how the game got to where it currently is has been one mishap and miscalculation after another.

It all began with John Romero and his game development company, which made a ridiculous amount of money on "Doom" and "Duke Nukem 3D." There was enough money, in fact, to bankroll the company’s operations and expansion for a decade without putting out another game. The idea behind the company’s philosophy was that it focused on the designer almost entirely. This meant that the creative minds behind the game took near-total control of any project handed to them, without having to deal with executives from game publishers meddling with their product or imposing a definite release date on the team.

This meant that the designers oversee the whole thing, adding their own creative flavor, at their own pace. However, there was a danger that a terrible management could delay the game indefinitely. At first, the game was being developed at a decent pace, with the help of a licensed version of the then-advance Quake Engine. But overtime, they discovered that the Unreal Engine was enormously superior so they set aside all the work they’d already done, licensed the better code and went back to square one to start all over again.

Each time a new game engine came out that proved superior to the one the company was using, the practice was to drop everything that was already done and start from scratch. The result of all this was a game that was always getting near completion, but never actually getting there. Romero’s obsession with making the game perfect rather than simply getting the game out was not doing the damage it should have since the company had a massive amount of cash to spend. The only time finances ever really became an issue was then they put out "Daikatana," which had failed to even be remotely playable and ended up costing the company money..

Because of this, Romero’s sources were starting to run out. Years of development yielded nothing but a failed demos and useless material. He didn’t give up and instead tried to look for investors who were willing to fund the project so he can attempt to finish "Duke Nukem Forever" for the last time. However, it just wouldn’t work out. Because of this continued failures, the investors decided to hand the project over to another company that was sure to get the game out. Design house Gearbox was then given full control over the project.

Now, the game is set to be released on May 6 2011 and its trailer seems promising. After 12 years of development, there are only high expectations left for the game.