In 2009, Duke Nukem Forever was cancelled after over a decade in development. Itās now famously back from the grave, but if youāve ever wondered how far the original developers were from actually finishing it, Triptych president David Riegel has your answer.
āWhen 3D Realms shut its doors in May, I would say the game was maybe about 75-80% compared to what it is today, but it was interesting because it was a kind of an uneven 80%ā, he said in a podcast on the official Duke Nukem site. āThere were entire AI systems that were done, probably about 90-95% of the weapons were done in terms of effects and game play and entire sections of the game that are still around nowā-a lot of the game is still around now; but it was missing some major things, like there was noā¦narrative script; there was no dialog; nothing written for any character.ā
āMost of the characters didnāt exist. NPC behavior didnāt really exist, like no head tracking or eye tracking, no lip syncing, none of that. No music, no ending: there was a planned ending but it wasnāt really there.ā
Riegel was once working on the game before developers 3D Realms went bust, so he knows what heās talking about!
