Duke Nukem Forever is a computer game that has been under development by 3D Realms since its announcement on April 28th, 1997, originally slated to use the (then) state of the art Quake II 3D engine. A few months later, screen shots were published in PC Gamer magazine, along with an intended release date of mid-1998. Excitement grew in May of 1998 when a few short video clips of Duke Nukem Forever were shown at E3... Surely a final release of the game was right around the corner!
Just about when mid-1998 arrived (June, specifically) 3D Realms announced they were changing 3D engines to Epic\'s Unreal engine. George Broussard, the producer and co-creator of the Duke Nukem series insisted that this change would not cause any significant delay, despite all logic pointing to the contrary. Also at this point, Broussard assured everyone Duke Nukem Forever would see a 1999 release.
1999 came and went, Duke Nukem Forever saw another engine change, this time to an updated version of the same Unreal engine they were working on. 3D Realms even released a Duke Nukem Christmas card, insinuating a 2000 release. Not surprisingly, the year 2000 came and went without Duke Nukem Forever. Another Christmas card was released, this time hinting at a 2001 release.
In the summer of 2001, 3D Realms released the most substantial proof to date that Duke Nukem Forever has ever existed in any form- a two and a half minute game play trailer:
In 2002, 3D Realms hired new programmers, and decided instead of switching to another 3D engine, they would just develop their own, making this the fourth engine change since the initial announcement of the game. Broussard eventually came out to say that at this point, \"95%\" of the already designed levels had been scraped, and had they remained on track they would have been \"two years\" off from releasing Duke Nukem Forever under the Unreal engine.
In early 2003, the CEO of Take Two, 3D Realms\' publisher announced Duke Nukem Forever would be released by the end of the year. This eventually changed to \"by the end of 2004\" and then \"in the beginning of 2005.\" In September of 2004, GameSpot.com revealed a rumor that Duke Nukem Forever had made its fifth 3D engine change, this time using the Quake III engine. Broussard denied the rumor, but announced only a few days later that they had switched to a different physics engine for the game.
