Duke Nukem Forever Almost Didn't Suck (Quite So Much): Digital Extremes Says They Were Too Busy Saving Other Games
AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer ·
Digital Extremes said they were too busy with Bioshock and The Darkness 2 to take on the development of Duke Nukem Forever. Could they have saved it from sucking? Probably not, but it's fun to think about, innit?
Alright, settle in, because we're diving headfirst into the development history of a game so legendarily troubled, it's practically a meme: Duke Nukem Forever. You remember that one, right? The game announced back in the late 90s that finally lumbered onto shelves in 2011, leaving a trail of broken promises and disappointed gamers in its wake. *That* Duke Nukem Forever.
So, what's new? Well, according to Eurogamer, Sheldon Carter, COO of Digital Extremes (the folks behind Warframe), recently revealed a fascinating "what if?" scenario. Apparently, back in the day, there was a chance Digital Extremes could have taken the reins on DNF. But, and this is a big but, they were already drowning in other projects: namely, BioShock and The Darkness 2. Both pretty solid games, if I do say so myself.
Now, this clashes a bit with what Apogee and 3D Realms co-founder Scott Miller said back in 2022. Miller claimed he tried to hand the game over to Digital Extremes around 2004, believing they were the studio that could actually get it done. He even said Take-Two (the publisher at the time) was on board, but the idea was nixed internally. Ouch. "Fatal suicide shot," he called it. Dramatic, much?
Carter's take is a bit more nuanced. He told Eurogamer that while they definitely had meetings with George Broussard (the Duke Nukem mastermind), and it was all very exciting, Digital Extremes was simply too swamped with BioShock and The Darkness 2 to take on another massive project. "There's an alternate history [laughs] on how that all worked out," Carter said. "But I can't imagine it could have been anything but George's baby to be honest."
He clarified that it wasn't so much that they *didn't want* Duke Nukem Forever, but rather that their plates were already overflowing. The Darkness 2 was Carter's "baby" at the time, and with both that and BioShock in full swing, adding another behemoth like DNF just wasn't feasible. Fair enough, I reckon. Trying to juggle three massive FPS titles at once? Sounds like a recipe for disaster, even for a studio as talented as Digital Extremes.
So, could Digital Extremes have saved Duke Nukem Forever from its own… well, forever-ness? We'll never truly know. But it's a fun thought experiment. Imagine a world where Duke Nukem Forever was actually… good? Wild, isn't it? Then again, we might not have gotten the awesome that is Warframe if they weren't up to their eyeballs in other projects at the time. Swings and roundabouts, eh? *Eurogamer* has the full story.
It also turns out that this week marks a rather dubious milestone, 5,158 days to be exact, since Duke Nukem Forever was announced in 1997. 10th June 2011 was the release date, so July 24th 2025 will be one whole Duke Nukem Forever away from Duke Nukem Forever. What a thought.
Tags: Duke Nukem Forever, Digital Extremes, BioShock, The Darkness 2, Gaming History
Original article: Eurogamer