Duke Nukem Forever is considered one of the most infamous, yet legendary games in the industry for over 10 years. It’s has been scrutinized for it’s lateness and the irony of it’s title. Heck, it’s even become an Internet meme by this point. But the question is, WHY has it become the butt of almost every gamer’s jokes, and more importantly, how did it get delayed so many times? As a fellow gamer and Duke Nukem fan myself, allow me to tell you all about it.

Let us begin our story by going back in time to 1991. That was the year the first Duke Nukem game came out. Created by then-rookie game developer 3D Realms (although the game was released under the publishing brand of Apogee) and their head honchos, Scott Miller and George Broussard, the game spawned two sequels, most notably Duke Nukem 3D, which pioneered interactivity with objects in gaming. The title character himself, a tongue-in-cheek, yet awesome mix between Bruce Campbell, Clint Eastwood, and especially Arnold Schwarzenegger, was one of the first video game characters to not only speak, but also have a personality. In the games, Duke is usually portrayed as a womanizing, no-hold-bared bad-ass who shoots first and asks questions later. In short, he’s almost a parody of the old 80′s action heroes. The games were such a big hit in the 90′s that, in 1997, 3D Realms announced a fourth Duke Nukem game, Duke Nukem Forever. Little did they know that the game’s title would become more and more ironic as the game progressed.

Despite several trailers released in 1998, 2001, and 2007 that featured the game in various forms throughout it’s development, the truth was that none of the represented what the game was going to look like when done. Why? Because George Broussard became obsessed with adding new elements to the game, graphics-related or otherwise. A very notable example every time a new graphics engine like Quake II or the first Unreal Engine came out, Broussard quickly hit the developmental reset button and had the team working on the game switch over to it. This caused the game to undergo countless delays, giving the project the infamy it has to day. It got to the point where, from 2007 onwards, people started to confront George, especially the director of the game, and started pressuring him to get the game finished.

Unfortunately, just when it started looking like the game was finally going to be completed and released, the inevitable happened. In May of 2009, 3D Realms closed their doors after their funding ran out and the fate of Duke Nukem Forever was left unknown. However, publisher 2K Games wasn’t happy about not getting the game they were promised and filed a lawsuit against them. It was finally settled in May 2010, but the result was never revealed. Fortunately for us unsuspecting gamers, the lawsuit ordeal was nothing compared to the shock gamers would get a few months later…

At Penny Arcade Expo on September 10th, 2010, Gearbox Software, the developers of the hit game Borderlands, surprised the crowd by revealing that not only did they scoop up the IP to the intellectual property (IP, for short) to the Duke Nukem series from 3D Realms but that Duke Nukem Forever will FINALLY be released in 2011 (now revealed last month to be May 3, 2011 in the US with everywhere else getting it 3 days later). Gearbox got a few key members of the original Duke Nukem Forever team back under a new company called Tryptich Games to help finish what they started and even got the character’s original voice actor, Jon St. John, to voice him once more. What’s more is that a playable demo of the game was available to attendees at the convention! With the game finally coming out, the legacy of this long-awaited follow-up to one of the greatest shooters of the 90′s is about to come to an end.

[Thanks to Maniac from the Gearbox Software forums for making such an awesome DNF retrospective video (see above), which I watched for research on this article! I hope you guys enjoyed this little retrospective, and HAIL TO THE KING, BABY!]