Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded Put on Hold

This month there’s been a sudden slowdown in progress on the project formerly known as “DN3D: Next-Gen”, that began its life a year ago or so. For you who might have forgotten, it’s a standalone game using Unreal Engine 3, which is supposed to give Duke Nukem Forever a run for its money, not only in the looks department, but gameplay-wise too, hopefully. We all know that DN3D is still a better game than DNF! And to top if off, it has official backing by Gearbox Software – the new owners of the DN IP.

But September brings some bad news, as just over the weekend it was revealed by the team in charge of the project -Interceptor Entertainment, headed by Fresch AKA Frederick Schreiber- that DN3D: Reloaded is being put on hold until further notice. Reasons why this is happening weren’t made entirely clear from looking at the blog post on the official website, or the Facebook wall, but from visiting the thread on the forums it seems as though this ambitious project -which was originally conceived by just one man- has run in to licence issues – big surprise. We all knew it was too good to be true.

The last status update seems to indicate that the team was “around 90% finished with the multiplayer version” and was “in the final phase of the game, slowly starting the Beta phase”. In August they even took the game to Gearbox Software, and have had a “big media package, in-game trailer, and a Behind the Scenes documentary ready for some time but it’s not available for public viewing yet. But if what they say is anything to go by, it’s gonna be good if we ever get to see it, anyway.

It looks like the Duke Nukem curse was passed on from DNF, and is still alive and well.

Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded Put on Hold

Duke Nukem: NextGen Project Renamed, Details

The project going on over at the Gearbox forums that I posted about a while ago is getting stronger. Fresch, the man in charge, has assembled a team to work on this game which was called Duke Nukem: NextGen for a little while.

People were worried that he wouldn’t get permission to make the game, which will use Unreal Engine 3, and will be built from scratch, basically. But the guys at GBX have granted them a non-commercial licence to go ahead and do it. Big surprise to most of us, surely, considering the stink that Activision made regarding The Silver Lining.

But now the project has a new name. It’s called Duke Nukem 3D: Reloaded, or DNR for short. And the team working on it has a name too – Interceptor Entertainment. Add to this that there’s now a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a website for the game with forums, as well as future plans for a ModDB account as well. Any self-respecting project has one.

And they reportedly even have the producer behind Killzone 3 backing this game! This is becoming huge all ready.

But, not everybody is that impressed. There are critics obviously that fall into different camps.

There are those who feel it would be better to wait for Duke Nukem Forever to come out, whenever that is (they say 2011.. sometime before Christmas), and just make a mod which would recreate the levels from DN3D, with most of the content, like guns and textures and so on, all ready created. The name for this was suggested to be a resurrection of the name Duke Nukem 3D Forever.

There was even a poll on the GBX forums which asked for people to vote for what they’d prefer: a game created from scratch (like DNR), or a mod for DNF. Some even want both, the greedy hogs.

Then the boys heading up or supporting the High Resolution Pack project for EDuke32 – a source port for DN3D – say that they don’t like the look of the game, and think it’s ugly, and it doesn’t look like DN3D. Jealousy, anyone?

I’ve been a fan of the Duke Nukem franchise for nigh on 20 years, and I have no ill feelings towards this project. It’s just a matter of whether the team can stick with it and produce the goods. Yeah, it’ll be harder to generate all the content themselves, but the effort will pay off in the long run. This could well be a step towards a career in game development for some on the team – others who are working on the game all ready are professional game developers, apparently.

As for a release date on the game – you know what I’m going to say here, but I’ll say it anyway: “When it’s Done.”

Source: Gearbox Forums

Duke Nukem: NextGen Project Renamed, Details