Once was, 3D Realms was associated with some of the biggest names in the business, particularly the shareware side. Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Crystal Caves, and, of course, Duke Nukem 3D were all developed or published in partnership with the company. id Software of DOOM fame collaborated with them on their earliest projects before breaking away, and Realms’ partnership with then-powerful Apogee Software made it a force to be reckoned with.
The true “force,” though, was the mighty Build Engine, developed by wiz kid Ken Silverman and first introduced in Duke3D. Unlike the DOOM engine, the then reigning champ of first person, Build allowed players to look up and down and – more importantly – created the illusion that player action could affect and deform the environment in-game. Thus it was possible to blow up buildings and watch them tumble, experience an earthquake, and much more. Build was hugely popular, powering more than a dozen games in the mid-nineties.
Duke3D, reviled by many for fairly overt sexism and crude toilet humor, was nonetheless an exceptional first person shooter, one which captivated a generation of players still entranced by the FPS format. The announcement of Duke Nukem Forever in 1997 was a no-brainer at the time. But as the years went by, technologies came and went and Duke Forever seemed less and less likely to see the light of day.
Perhaps more significantly, Duke himself seemed less relevant in the post-Balkans, post-9/11 era. The ripped, sexist, Busch Lite-drinking, stripper-watching Rambo type had given way in American hero culture, replaced by more cerebral action heroes. That Duke was so effortlessly ridiculed in the Serious Sam games seemed to me a perfect sign of the character’s impactlessness.
But production continued, for a dozen years since announcement, until yesterday. Rumors floating around the net are conflicting, and there may be an eleventh hour save, but for right now, folks, it’s the end of the line.
“That Duke was so effortlessly ridiculed in the Serious Sam games seemed to me a perfect sign of the character’s impactlessness.”
Ridiculed??? I thought he was homaged. I mean, I am from Balkans myself (and the developers of SS are as well) and over here Duke always had nothing but respect and love. Not sure I saw Serious Sam as satre of any kind…
Anyway, as for the 3d Realms, to me it’s a complete mystery how on Earth they managed to fund the development of DNF for twelve years (what little development they did). I mean, Take Two makes it very clear that their part of the publishing deal does not extend to funding the development itself so… where the hell did the money keep coming from? Even if 3D Realms for the last ten years was nothing but Broussard and a couple of his buddies staying at home and coding in their bedrooms – thus reducing the overheads to near zero, they would still have to eat, no? Anyone can shed any light on this?
Interesting. It’s funny that if Sam was seen as an homage in the Balkans, he certainly wasn’t in the west – here he was perceived as a buffoonish cartoon character utterly dependent on the computer inside his brain for any kind of cerebral heavy lifting. The whole game was a comedy, of course, but always felt like Croteam were mocking the balls-out, hundreds-of-enemies, brainless-cro-mag-hero shooters of yesteryear.
As for money, I honestly don’t know how 3D Realms got its funding. Conceivably they were living off past successes. Maybe everyone who came to work for them had to sell a kidney on the black market. That would hold them for a while.
I think I’m with Meho on this one.
I always thought the title: Duke Nukem Forever, was a hint that there wasn’t any game at all, that it was just a promotional notion that would be used forever to get a little attention every once in a while while they did other stuff.
Slashdot had some interesting comments (but you know, people can lie) about how the development was rather fascicle. Interesting read.
However, I agree, Serious Sam wasn’t really ridiculing, but just more over the top from what I’ve read about it – homage perhaps, but certainly just doing it for laughs (which of course the whole Duke Nukem series did, did you ever play the 2d platformers? 🙂 ), and ridiculing might have been part of it, but not the whole, since they intentionally made the game like that (now Matt Hazzard, that’d a ridicule – the gameplay isn’t better then the things it is parodying is a dead giveaway!).
They kept in the black by doing publishing and other deals – Max Payne for instance (which wasn’t a small seller), and relicencing Duke Nukem a lot it seems (lots of ports…), as well as early on the Build engine really did make them cash as Matt said 🙂 No doubt there was other private investment.
I’ve honestly heard so little from the company though it’d be really interesting finding out the internal company history. I hope someone is able to coax it out of them.
Here’s a history of the project: http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1129
Yeesh! They should have shipped in 2001. It looks like continued attempts to exceed the capabilities of the licensed engines led to too much custom development done on each engine, followed by the passage of time which inevitably means other engines coming along that look better. Eventually, starting in about 2004 through 2007, (running on a ‘heavily modified’ Unreal engine) it sound like the upheaval becomes entrenched and the team is unable to demo anything more than disjointed test maps and scripted sequences.