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Duke Nukem Forever Back In Development
An anonymous reader writes "'Always bet on Duke.' It seems he was right about himself, at least. The longest, most storied in-development game in history seems like it's finally going to be released by Gearbox Software sometime within the next year. 'According to Pitchford, Gearbox began finishing Duke Nukem Forever in late 2009. "Clearly the game hadn't been finished at 3D Realms but a lot of content had been created," he says. "The approach and investment and process at 3D Realms didn't quite make it, and it cracked at the end. With Gearbox Software we brought all those pieces together. It's the game it was meant to be." The game is currently expected to ship in 2010 although given its history Pitchford is understandably reluctant to be more specific.'"
Generic console FPS game with some punchy one liners. Snooore!
After being thoroughly satisfied with Borderlands (and I still play it regularly, can't wait for the expansion this month!) I think Gearbox is the best developer to finish up DNF. BL has lots of similar humor and is probably in my list of top 5 favorite games of at least the last 5 years.
Having said that.. I'm still going to wait until it's been out for a few days or weeks before buying, to see if it's worth it. I don't doubt Gearbox's talent but I do think DNF has enough negative "vibe" around it that there is a chance it won't live up to how fun the original was. And that's really the ultimate metric in my opinion...is the game fun? Nothing else really matters.
It cost 6 billion to put a network of satellites in orbit for a satphone network that cost $4 a minute--absolutely unsustainable business model. Picked up for $25 million after bankruptcy, it's now a thriving business since the huge sunk costs were discharged to the investors.
No surprise at all that a company would take 3D Realms assets, slap them all together and box them up. The launch campaign writes itself: "HOLY SHIT IT'S FINALLY HERE!"
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
It makes sense, Duke Nuke'em has such massive name recognition, as long as it's not a completely sucky game it's guaranteed to sell decently. Financially speaking, it makes sense for someone to buy it up and put a bit of effort in to get it out the door. I'm surprised EA didn't do it.
Qxe4
I just died a little inside...
Yes, DNF is part of the Duke Nukem series, and Duke Nukem 3D was released 14 years ago. There's also the 2002 Manhattan Project but it's not really the same genre. If the game is good, being a sequel to an old game won't hurt it. Fallout 3 looks to be a good example. Released in 2008 to much acclaim from critics and players but it was a sequel, the first two Fallouts came out in 1997 and 1998. So technologically, it's a huge jump and I bet Fallout 3 had plenty of younger players who never played the first two parts. Which didn't hurt the perception of Fallout 3 any.
Likewise, DNF would not be hurt directly by being a sequel in the Duke Nukem series. It will do just fine if it's ever released and is a good game. Although if it really is released within the next year, I wouldn't expect the game to be much good - the development history seems too screwed up to produce a good end result.