WI - Duke Nukem Forever had been released?

What if the infamous Duke Nukem Forever had actually been released?

On this day in history – 1997, to be exact – 3D Realms announced a new video game they were working on called Duke Nukem Forever. Back in those halcyon, optimistic days of yore the idea was that the game would be out and in consumers hot little hands no later than mid-1998.

I'll just wait here while y'all finish ROTFL.

At first they were going to put it on the Quake II engine, but there was apparently a delay before they received the actual engine code. Then at E3 their programmers got an eyeful of Epic Games sweet Unreal Engine – much better at rendering open spaces and realistic characters. So they switched to that, meaning that they essentially had to rewrite the whole game over from scratch. Another delay. Then later 3D Realms honcho George Broussard decided that he wanted to go to the Unreal II engine instead. Yet another delay. And so on, and so forth...we all know the story by now.

So...what if this thing had actually been released on time, and then went on to become a successful FPS franchise ala Quake, Unreal, Call of Duty, Halo, etc? POD is there is no delay in getting the QII code so they have even more of the game completed when they go to E3. Since at that point the thing is half finished anyway (and they've already paid Id a large sum of money for the code) they decide to stick with it.

They do a good job despite the limitations and the game is a hit. The next release, Duke Nukem Goes To Mars or whatever, is on the Unreal II engine and is an even bigger hit, and so on, possibly until today.

What, if any, influence would a successful Duke have had on the development of first person shooters? Would Broussard be filthy rich? Would 3D Realms go on to create bigger and better franchises? Would Duke be a respected gaming icon instead of a punchline??
 
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Typo

Banned
They were pretty close to release back in 1999 or so.

They just kept it in "developement" so they can continue to get money for doing nothing.

In all honestly, it probably wouldn't have being that great, and the one after that probably would have killed it. DN, like Doom, was a 90s thing, the sort of immaturity thing in it would have being beaten by GTAIII, while newer and more innovative FPS like half-life and its mod counter-strike would have dominated the market.
 
One of the reason they were able to go on for so long development wise was because the previous Duke Nukem sold that well. It wasn't until recently that they actually needed loans to continue funding the game.

If they released the game, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, and all the dead Beatles would rise from the grave to revolutionize the music scene again, The Duke Nukem series gets a movie that actually is both a faithful adaptation and a high quality film causing several other video game movie adaptations that are also treated seriously and too become financial hits. Hell freezes over, cats and dogs live together and mass hysteria.
 
They were pretty close to release back in 1999 or so.

They just kept it in "developement" so they can continue to get money for doing nothing.

In all honestly, it probably wouldn't have being that great, and the one after that probably would have killed it. DN, like Doom, was a 90s thing, the sort of immaturity thing in it would have being beaten by GTAIII, while newer and more innovative FPS like half-life and its mod counter-strike would have dominated the market.

Yeah, but part of my premise is that it's a big success straight out the gate. If so, the sort of silly humor it typified might have had more of an influence on FPS for a longer period of time. And of course being a successful franchise, it's going to change over the years.
 
Duke Nukem Forever? When I stop laughing, I'm come up with a witty response.

Aw come on - surely SOMEWHERE out there in the multiverse there's at least one world where it actually got released (somehow). :p

From everything I've read of it, DNF was at bottom a pretty much straightforward FPS. It's not as though they were trying to put out something truly revolutionary, even for its era!
 
Awe man, I would have totally bought it had it come out, most likely wasted endless hours playing it...sigh....
 
Oh, oh

Duke Nukem Forever released? :eek::eek::eek::eek:

Oh, oh. Wouldn't we have to worry about side effects? I mean, what WOULD would happen to the poor Earth if Hell froze over and the Chicago Cubs won the World Series? It's sobering to think about. ;)
 

Goldstein

Banned
Excuse me, gentlemen, but I'm not going to join the "zomg alien space bats :p:eek::p:eek: LOLOLOL" chorus and I'll try to come up with an actual scenario, if you don't mind.

So, as gwendolyn ingoflsson suggests, the QII code arrives on time, so by the 1998 E3, they decide to stick with the original plan, and DNF arrives on the 1998 christmas, as yet another action-packed FPS set mostly in Las Vegas and the Nevada desert. They do a decent job and the franchise already has a reputation, so even if the franchise has nothing to do against Half Life, it still sells almost as much as Unreal (which has more fluid graphics, but is a newcomer and needs more system requierements). 3D Realms use part of the benefits to adapt their line of work and they start to think about their new project, this time trying to benefit from the Unreal engine.

With the emergence of UT, which is more deathmatch-oriented, and counter-strike as the king of the LAN games, the team decides not to care about the multiplayer mode and give the new DN a more cinematic approach, with a mildly interactive enviroment, retaining the same parodic, mature style... something somewhat similar to what they showed OTL in the 2001 E3. So in 2001 Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (time-travel oriented, as the OTL game of the same name, but substantially different) is released for PC and PS2. Let's say it created a great hype (after all, people at the 2001 E3 left very impressed by the DNF trailer) and it sells even better than the previous release, debuting in PS2 and hence safe from the arrival of Halo. Once again, the rising star of the year is the revolutionary GTA 3, but the DN frachise is more than consolidated by then. As a side effect, Prey appears two years earlier, and by 2010 it has two sequels, and it's a well known videogame franchise.

The last serious DN project, after a small delay, was DN: Manhattan Project. Released in february 2004, it benefited from its own, potent graphic engine, and above everything, it was the first FPS sandbox, with a great lever of interaction, destructible environments, and a huge, detailed playground (700 km2-almost the entirety on NYC, no less), all of which made it win the title of game of the year 2004. Between the greater repercussions can be listed the much more modest success of Farcry, which eventually faded into a relative obscurity, and the greater impact the emergence of the FPS sandbox style, making several game franchises to diverge substantially in content from OTL: Namely Bioshock, Fallout 3 and the Gears of War series. Later on, 3D realms decides to move on with other projects...
 
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Excuse me, gentlemen, but I'm not going to join the "zomg alien space bats :p:eek::p:eek: LOLOLOL" chorus and I'll try to come up with an actual scenario, if you don't mind.

Thank you Mr. Goldstein! Truly you are a Gentleman and a scholar. :)

So, as gwendolyn ingoflsson suggests, the QII code arrives on time, so by the 1998 E3, they decide to stick with the original plan, and DNF arrives on the 1998 christmas, as yet another action-packed FPS set mostly in Las Vegas and the Nevada desert. They do a decent job and the franchise already has a reputation, so even if the franchise has nothing to do against Half Life, it still sells almost as much as Unreal (which has more fluid graphics, but is a newcomer and needs more system requierements). 3D Realms use part of the benefits to adapt their line of work and they start to think about their new project, this time trying to benefit from the Unreal engine.

True. See, I'd forgotten all about about the system requirements for Unreal. It's both entertaining and informative to go back and look at the archived commentary on old gaming sites when classic titles first came out ("OMFG you need a PENTIUM?! Who can afford that??").

As a side effect, Prey appears two years earlier, and by 2010 it has two sequels, and it's a well known videogame franchise.

Oh now that's a nice butterfly! Less delays in the industry I guess. I wonder how all of this would effect Daikatana? Ah, it would probably still have sucked and blown at the same time...

The last serious DN project, after a small delay, was DN: Manhattan Project. Released in february 2004, it benefited from its own, potent graphic engine, and above everything, it was the first FPS sandbox, with a great lever of interaction, destructible environments, and a huge, detailed playground (700 km2-almost the entirety on NYC, no less), all of which made it win the title of game of the year 2004. Between the greater repercussions can be listed the much more modest success of Farcry, which eventually faded into a relative obscurity, and the greater impact the emergence of the FPS sandbox style, making several game franchises to diverge substantially in content from OTL: Namely Bioshock, Fallout 3 and the Gears of War series. Later on, 3D realms decides to move on with other projects...

Now there's a real divergence - Bioshock, Fallout 3 and GoW would have been dramatically different done like that. Not to mention the prospect of a sandbox Fallout 3 makes me want to borrow the TARDIS and head for that TL ASAP! :D
 
Doesn't Fallout 3 already count as a sandbox? :confused:

Anyway, other than that, I think I like Mr. Goldstein's alternative version. Duke Nukem 3D was only the second FPS I ever played, after Wolfenstein 3D. While I'm not the immature kid I was then who found it amusing, it was still special, in a way, in that it helped form the basis of my gaming habits. (Along with lots of other stuff on the PC, such as Commander Keen and Quest for Glory. I was a total PC person; didn't own a console till 2001.)

I'm curious to see how it would affect other genres. Duke Nukem Forever, being what it is, has influenced almost the entire video game industry, if only because no one wants to be the next Duke Nukem Forever. Without that example I have to wonder what would happen to some other promising games. (Could perhaps even far away genres as RPGs be affected? What might happen to the Final Fantasy series, or Kingdom Hearts?)
 
If this were to happen, then hell would have to freeze over first.

In Fact, o'm pretty sure any game that takes this long should have the player go through a frozen hell as the first level.
 
Aw come on - surely SOMEWHERE out there in the multiverse there's at least one world where it actually got released (somehow). :p

From everything I've read of it, DNF was at bottom a pretty much straightforward FPS. It's not as though they were trying to put out something truly revolutionary, even for its era!

Yeah, and I'm sure that not only is their a universe out there where I'm not a total loser, but even one where I am the Pope!
 
Well, Goldstein, if you're going to take this seriously then I'll just have to shelve the post about the blonde, tattooed daughter-in-law and my grandson Dukey... :eek: :D
 

Goldstein

Banned
Thank you Mr. Goldstein! Truly you are a Gentleman and a scholar. :)

You're welcome! Glad you liked it.


Oh now that's a nice butterfly! Less delays in the industry I guess. I wonder how all of this would effect Daikatana? Ah, it would probably still have sucked and blown at the same time...

Oh, yes, Daikatana. I guess it still sucked very hard ITTL (by 1997, John Romero had already taken every possible wrong decission)... but Daikatana arriving earlier and being a cutting-edge game would be another good WI, and it would have plenty of consequences for the videogame titles to come... maybe the idea of programmers and designers as artists and almost stars would still be in the air, and that would have great consequences for the popular culture in general...

...And yeah, hell would freeze over and blah blah blah...
 
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