Duke Nukem Forever

Overview

Duke Nukem Forever is a 2011 first-person shooter developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K for Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. It is the fourth main game in the Duke Nukem series and the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D (1996). Duke comes out of retirement to fight an alien invasion, with the same pop culture references, toilet humour and adult content as before.

It combines combat, exploration and puzzles, and switches to a third-person view in vehicles. The fights take place in Las Vegas, on a highway and at the Hoover Dam, with boss fights, fetch quests and driving sections. In one stretch Duke is shrunk and drives a toy car. There are minigames such as air hockey, whack-a-mole and pinball. As in Halo, you carry two weapons at a time and health regenerates. Weapons include a shotgun, trip mines, a shrink ray and a freeze ray. Multiplayer has deathmatch, capture the flag and king of the hill.

Development began at 3D Realms. The game was announced on 27 April 1997, expected for Christmas 1998, and was then delayed again and again, which was put down to engine changes, understaffing and a lack of planning. It switched from the Quake II engine to Unreal Engine in 1998 and to a newer Unreal Engine in 1999. Take-Two bought the publishing rights in December 2000.

In 2009 3D Realms ran out of money and laid off the team. A group of ex-employees, who later became Triptych Games, kept working from home. In September 2010 Gearbox Software announced it had bought the Duke Nukem rights and would finish the game, and on 24 May 2011 it went gold. It holds the Guinness world record for the longest development of a video game at the time, 14 years and 44 days.

It was released on 10 June 2011 in Europe and Australia and 14 June in North America, after the street date was broken and retailers sold it a day early on 9 June. A special Balls of Steel edition came with a five-inch bust of Duke, a 100-page art book, a comic, stickers and poker chips. GameStop pre-orders in North America got Duke's Big Package, including Big Heads, Ego Boost and custom t-shirts.

Reviews were mostly unfavourable. Metacritic gives 51 for PS3, 49 for Xbox 360 and 54 for PC. Criticism covered the graphics, dated humour and story, simple mechanics, long load times and unpolished design. It did not meet sales expectations but Take-Two considered it profitable. Two pieces of DLC followed in 2011, the Hail to the Icons Parody Pack and a new campaign, The Doctor Who Cloned Me.

Screenshots

Game details

Genres

First-person shooter

Developer

Gearbox Software

Publisher

2K

Series

Duke Nukem

Engine

Unreal Engine (heavily modified, known as the Duke Engine)

Composers

Eric Von Rothkirch

Writers

Valeta Wensloff, Kristen Haglund, David Riegel

Producers

Mike Wardwell, Geoff Gordon, Matthew Newman, Brian Hook

Directors

Bryan Ekman, George Broussard

Modes

Single player

Yes

Local multiplayer

No

Online multiplayer

Yes

Release dates

Editions

Buy this game

Subscription history

Trophies

Trophies63

Platinum possibleYes

Platinum

1

Gold

2

Silver

10

Bronze

50

Total

63

Points

1530

• Savior of the Universe You got them all! Platinum 4.75% of players
• Extermination Kill 50 aliens Bronze 76.17% of players
• Annihilation Kill 100 aliens Bronze 62.89% of players
• Nuclear Devastation Kill 250 aliens Bronze 48.04% of players
• On the Noggin' Kill 30 aliens with headshots Bronze 36.98% of players
• Hippy-Stomper Foot stomp 12 aliens Bronze 24.36% of players
• Judge, Jury, Executioner Execute 20 aliens Bronze 29.54% of players
• Trapper Kill 10 aliens with Trip Mines Bronze 19.11% of players
• Freeze Well! Kill 15 frozen aliens Bronze 20.55% of players
• Road Rage Kill 15 aliens with the monster truck Bronze 36.69% of players
• Fork the Pork Kill 6 aliens with the forklift Bronze 27.75% of players
• Dead Useful Kill 10 aliens with environmental explosives Bronze 39.31% of players
• Tosser... in the Literal Sense Kill 10 aliens with tossed objects Bronze 17.21% of players
• Duke Angry, Duke Smash! Kill 15 aliens with melee attacks while on steroids Bronze 26.26% of players
• Noms Eat 10 pieces of food in SP Bronze 35.73% of players
• Natural Disaster 3x Kill 3 aliens at once Bronze 54.8% of players
• Full Body Tourettes Get knocked down 10 times Bronze 38.21% of players
• Turd Burglar Find and steal a piece of poo Bronze 51.27% of players
• I Need a Towel Get hit by 10 Pregnator bombs Bronze 36.65% of players
• Baron von Nukem Shoot down 20 alien fighters Bronze 45.3% of players
• Call Waiting Listen to all phone messages Silver 6.89% of players
• Bucket Head Find all 3 helmets in the SP campaign Bronze 8.78% of players
• Party Animal Drink all of the beers in the strip club Bronze 14.73% of players
• Pescaphobe Kill all of the catfish in the underwater level Bronze 7.98% of players
• Drawrings Doodle something on the whiteboard in SP Bronze 89.78% of players
• I Need a Date Look at every page of a calendar in SP Bronze 17.73% of players
• Sticky Bomb Like You! Put a Trip Mine on a live alien Bronze 35.58% of players
• Big Guns, Big Ships Blow up 5 enemy Gunships or Dropships Bronze 50.77% of players
• Air-Duke Win air hockey with a score of 7-0 in the strip club Silver 14.59% of players
• Balls of Steel Earn a 1,000,000 pinball score in SP Silver 8.9% of players
• Flagon of Chuckles Drink a beer in SP Bronze 83.5% of players
• Juiced Take steroids in SP Bronze 77.52% of players
• He's Got a Hologram! Use a Holoduke in SP Bronze 35.72% of players
• Substance Abuser Drink beer while on steroids or vice-versa in SP Bronze 30.71% of players
• I Am All That Is Man Discover all ego cap rewards Silver 7.71% of players
• Gunslinger Carry the gold pistol through the whole SP campaign Silver 10.08% of players
• Sunday, Black Sunday Shoot down the blimp above the stadium Bronze 29.6% of players
• Nobody Likes a Whiner Knock out the talent at the talk show Bronze 78.07% of players
• Lots of Whacking Win a game of Alien Abortion in the strip club Bronze 24.73% of players
• Companion Barrel Unlock the secret closet at the end of the Forkstop Bronze 11.02% of players
• One-Eyed Freak Defeat the Cycloid Bronze 92.58% of players
• Pit Champion Defeat the Battlelord in Las Vegas Bronze 53.39% of players
• Not Bad for a Human Defeat the Alien Queen Silver 42.16% of players
• A Good Dam Fight Defeat the Battlelord on the Hoover Dam Silver 33.72% of players
• Octacide Defeat the Octaking Silver 29.52% of players
• Beating the One-Eyed Worm Defeat the Leech Silver 26.64% of players
• Piece of Cake Complete the SP campaign on Easy Difficulty Bronze 26.42% of players
• Let's Rock Complete the SP campaign on Normal Difficulty Silver 17.82% of players
• Come Get Some Complete the SP campaign on Hard Difficulty Gold 6.63% of players
• Damn, I'm Good Complete the SP campaign on Insane Difficulty Gold 4.86% of players
• Special Thanks Watch the credits all the way through Bronze 19.77% of players
• Bubble Buster Kill 10 expanded enemies with melee attacks Bronze 11.69% of players
• Threesome Kill 3 enemies within 3 seconds with the Impregnader Bronze 14.19% of players
• Passive Aggressive Let 20 enemies die by someone else's hand Bronze 12.21% of players
• Bloody Red Rover Kill 30 enemies with the moon rover Bronze 14.82% of players
• Scientits Earn a 1,000,000 pinball score on the Scientits pinball machine Bronze 9.67% of players
• Heart to Heart Finish Doctor Proton Bronze 16.08% of players
• Hedonist, not Misogynist Discover and reject the video game that lets you slap women Bronze 14.96% of players
• Another Piece of Cake Beat The Doctor Who Cloned Me on Easy Difficulty Bronze 14.54% of players
• Let's Rock Out Beat The Doctor Who Cloned Me on Normal Difficulty Bronze 12.1% of players
• Come Get A Little More Beat The Doctor Who Cloned Me on Hard Difficulty Bronze 8.99% of players
• Damn, I'm REALLY Good Beat The Doctor Who Cloned Me on Insane Difficulty Bronze 8.05% of players
• I Am All That Is Man - Again! Discover all Ego cap rewards in The Doctor Who Cloned Me Bronze 9.78% of players

Space and patches

Update patch01.03

These are the patches Sony still hosts for this disc ID. The game's real history can be longer.

DLC

There was one pre-order bonus, one parody pack and one new campaign. The campaign has its own twelve trophies.

Items

Name	Adds	Date
Duke's Big Package	GameStop pre-order bonus in North America: Big Heads, Ego Boost and custom in-game t-shirts, unlocked with a code on the receipt.
Hail to the Icons Parody Pack	Three game modes and four multiplayer maps, each with new weapons.	2011-10-11
The Doctor Who Cloned Me	A new single-player campaign with the return of Dr. Proton, with new weapons, enemies, bosses and multiplayer maps.	2011-12-13

Playable today

Reception

Aggregates

Outlet	Platform	Score	Scale
Metacritic	PS3	51	100
Metacritic	Xbox 360	49	100
Metacritic	PC	54	100

Critics

Outlet	Score	Scale
IGN	5.5	10
GameSpot	3.5	10
Eurogamer	3	10
Edge	3	10
Game Informer	6.75	10
GamesRadar	6	10
Destructoid	2	10
GameTrailers	5.4	10

Staff and cast

Staff

Role	Name
Director	Bryan Ekman
Director	George Broussard
Composer	Eric Von Rothkirch
Writer	Valeta Wensloff
Writer	Kristen Haglund
Writer	David Riegel

Cast

Character	Actor
Duke Nukem	Jon St. John

Notes for collectors

• It holds the Guinness world record for the longest development of a video game at 14 years and 44 days, though later games passed it.
• The game was sold a day early on 9 June 2011 at all retailers after the street date was broken.
• The trophy list has 63 trophies and 1,530 points, including twelve for The Doctor Who Cloned Me.
• Sony's patch manifest for the North American and European discs lists version 01.03.
• In May 2022 an unfinished 2001 build, with the level editor and source code, leaked online.
• It was released in Japan on 29 March 2012.

Credits

Region

US

Time to beat

about 9 hours