A project that will see the unfinished 2001 build of Duke Nukem Forever finally be completed by a third-party developer has just released its first gameplay trailer, with an announcement that its "first slice" will be coming very soon. Along with Quake, Doom, Goldeneye 007, and the original Half-Life, 1996's Duke Nukem 3D is considered one of the greatest FPS games of the 90s, building off what came before it to make a celebrated entry in the early days of the genre.
As a result, many were eager for the follow-up. Sadly, after spending nearly a decade and a half in development, not to mention switching studios and the fact that the industry had long since moved on since Duke's heyday, Duke Nukem Forever received near-universal criticism when it finally released in 2011. Noted for its lackluster action and dated attempts at humor, many felt the wait simply wasn't worth it in the end. However, there is a new and unofficial version of the game in the works which will see it go back to an early design.
A development team known as Mighty Foot Productions is currently rebuilding the 2001 iteration of Duke Nukem Forever, simply calling it the "DNF2001 Restoration Project," and has just launched a new trailer which features some gameplay from the upcoming high-octane FPS. The clip represents the "first slice" of the build, which will be releasing on December 21 and will also come with a deathmatch mode and level editor. The trailer gives a brief look into what fans can expect from the game, with a ton of classic action from a bygone era, as well as some lines of dialogue from Duke himself.
For those who don't know, this version of Duke Nukem Forever is being built from source code that was leaked earlier this year. It intends to reconstruct what the game was originally going to look and feel like in 2001. The official follow-up to Duke Nukem 3D was announced by developer 3D Realms in 1997, with a proposed release date of Christmas 1998. Of course, that never came to fruition and the game was in development for years before Gearbox Software, the studio behind the Half-Life expansions and Aliens: Colonial Marines, bought the Duke license in 2010.
It will be interesting to see what the DNF2001 Project will bring to the table, especially given the poor reception of Forever and the fact that nostalgic FPS games are all the rage at the moment. With fans still making mods for Duke Nukem 3D, there is evidently a lot of love left for the sunglasses-wearing alien killer, so maybe this unofficial release will help bring him back into the limelight in a more positive way.
Duke Nukem Forever is available on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Source: DSO Gaming, ModDB
