Duke Nukem Forever 2001 build leaked, ‘looks real,’ says creator

Duke Nukem Forever still not dead.

A leaker claims to have built Duke Nukem Forever similar to that at E3 2001 posted screenshots and video of the game early Monday, and the one-time platformer of the first-person shooter, producer George Broussard, says it’s looks authentic.

The leaker – “x0r” who posted their findings on 4chan (first tracked by the Duke4.net fansite) – said they will release that build in June. But as Broussard warns, anything this is nothing more than “a scattered pile of barely common test levels”. So DNF Fans should soften their expectations.

In the clip, Duke passes a burning, but poorly lit strip club, encountering minimal resistance as he goes. Cops in SWAT gear shoot back, and when Duke blows them away, some sort of alien tentacle erupts from their corpses. The HUD is the cleanest and modern feature, and it has an “ego” meter, which seems to act like a damage shield, that refills when Duke leaves another stooge.

The leaker – again posting on 4chan – claims that “almost every chapter is present in some form” of this build. “A large chunk is playable, a large chunk is an enemy-free block.” They say they will release the source code of the game with instructions for compiling it. This build of Duke Nukem Forever was implemented in Unreal Engine. As in the first Unreal Engine.

Duke Nukem Forever, sequel to the landmark 1996 Duke Nukem 3Dwas first announced during development in 1997, initially using Quake 2of the engine. But the devs switched to Unreal shortly after E3 1998, one of the changes and feature creep that will last Duke Nukem Foreverof growth over the next 13 years.

3D Realms, the game’s original studio, showed footage of the game at E3 2001, in part to appease fans who were worried about its lengthy development. But it will continue to drag on, and 3D Realms and publisher Take-Two Interactive are increasingly at odds over a game that Broussard and co-creator Scott Miller are self-funding, which means their publisher there is no deadline for enforcement or open to the market .

Take-Two sued 3D Realms in 2009 because the studio wasn’t finished Duke Nukem Forever. Gearbox Software later acquired Duke Nukem IP in 2010, what it later called a favor for 3D Realms to help get it out of legal problems. Gearbox finished and launched Duke Nukem Forever in 2011, for PlayStation 3, Windows PC, and Xbox 360. It was a critical failure, but Take-Two says the game eventually turned a profit.