A new development in the troubled history of Duke Nukem Forever has revealed itself. COO of Digital Extremes Sheldon Carter revealed to Eurogamer that while there was an “alternate history” where the Warframe-creator took the game under its wing, the studio had its hands full at the time with Bioshock and The Darkness 2.
This conflicts with a May 2022 post by Apogee and 3D Realms co-founder Scott Miller, who wrote a short history of the game after a 2001 build was leaked online. In it, Miller claimed he tried to pass the game onto Digital Extremes.
Miller stated: “I recognised that DNF was in deep trouble back in 2004 and tried to get the entire game developed by a more experienced studio, Digital Extremes (now famous for Warframe). The owner there was eager to take over DNF from us, and we even had the blessing of our publisher at the time (Take-Two), but this idea was shot down internally. It turned out to be a fatal suicide shot.”
But according to Sheldon, Digital Extremes was too busy to take up development of a third game:
“What can I say about this… I mean these are still those stories that are tough, tough to tell. I would say the things that were neat were that we definately got to see it all, and we got to have meetings with George [Broussard, co-founder Apogee and 3D Realms] who was amazing and has always been a cool guy. It was an exciting time for us. I think in the end they ended up being published by 2K right? We were working on The Darkness 2 and Bioshock, both were kind of cranking at that point. So, there’s an alternate history [laughs] on how that all worked out.
“But I can’t imagine it could have been anything but George’s baby to be honest.”
When asked if this was the main reason Digital Extremes didn’t take on Duke Nukem Forever, Carter emphasised it was moreso the work on The Darkness 2 and Bioshock was taking priority. Carter explained: “I think mainly we were pretty commited with the stuff that we had. My baby at the time was The Darkness 2, that was my obsession.
“The way our company was structured, we had two games which was really cool, and they were both going at that time with 2K. So it was natural for [3D Realms] to approach, as we were executing two first-person-shooters, but I don’t think it ever went to the level that might have been implied. We weren’t in a position to aquire it or take it on, it never got to that stage. It was definately cool though!
It turns out this week is a special one for the infamous Duke Nukem Forever. The game took 5,158 days to release since its announcement on the 27th April, 1997. Eventually coming out on 10th June, 2011, 5,158 days later, you’ve got the 24th July, 2025. How about that! On Thursday, we’ll be one Duke Nukem Forever away fron Duke Nukem Forever.