Duke Nukem Forever
Duke Nukem Forever is a yet-to-be-released first-person shooter video game being developed by 3D Realms. Once released, the game would be the most recent in the Duke Nukem franchise. It has achieved legendary status as vaporware, winning Wired News' Vaporware Awards in 2001 and 2002 and getting the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. Its original intended release date was 1997, but it has not been completed as of 2004. It has been jokingly referred to in gamers circles as Duke Nukem If Ever and Duke Nukem Whenever.
It is speculated by many that this title will never see the light of day, although developers continue to insist that it will ship "when it's done". Messageboard comments made by lead designer George Broussard suggested that as of 2004 the game development progresses reasonably well, even though he later said that almost all of the existing game content had been scrapped in early 2003 .
The game has undergone at least two major changes to its game engine during the course of development. Originally utilizing id Software's Quake II engine, the 3D Realms team switched in the middle of development to a heavily modified engine of EPIC's Unreal, forcing a revision of all previous work except for the game's textures. It is now believed to be using the latest version of the Unreal engine.
A December 18, 2003 article from GameSpot.com revealed that Jeffrey Lapin, CEO of Take Two Interactive (the publisher of Duke Nukem Forever), had a recent conversation with 3D Realms, discussing a revised released date. He was told that Duke Nukem Forever is expected to be finished by the end of 2004 or the beginning of 2005. 3D Realms's CEO became infuriated with Jeffrey Lapin for releasing confidential information regarding Duke Nukem Forever and had neither denied nor confirmed the information that Jeffrey Lapin revealed. The success of the Duke Nukem franchise, as well as proceeds from the wildly successful Max Payne, have allowed 3D Realms to self-finance the development of the sequel. This explains strained relationships between the developers and the publisher.
During the time DNF was in development Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project was successfully released (Windows, 2002).
