Have any of the builds of Duke Nukem Forever ever leaked?

[Morenatsu.]

The first two maps have unfinished scripting and you can't beat them, but starting from the third one the game is actually playable. Got to the rooftops, found an assault rifle, killed a bunch of infected EDF soldiers.

Fake news!!! You actually just have to wait for that guy to stop walking before you follow him. I guess if you go too early you trigger the triggers before they're meant to be triggered? The second map, the touch screen you have to use is actually broken, but that's something that's fixed in the patch.

This is basically Half-Life 1 clone with some minor feature bloat (you can loot corpses, collect currency and spend it on buying supplies from vending machines, switch between alternate ammo types, etc). Graphically looks very impressive.

It's not ‘bloat’, it's gloarious Sin-cloning. Bloat it out your ass.

 

[Wunderbar]

Fake news!!! You actually just have to wait for that guy to stop walking before you follow him. I guess if you go too early you trigger the triggers before they're meant to be triggered?

could be a broken trigger, dik. He just standed there doing nothing.

The second map, the touch screen you have to use is actually broken, but that's something that's fixed in the patch.

I passed a pipedream puzzle, but got stuck a bit later (near the burning kitchen).

It's not ‘bloat’, it's gloaring Sin-cloning. Bloat it out your ass.

I consider Sin to be bloated as well.

 

[Tacgnol]

There are script files for equipment upgrades as well, so it looks like there was intended to be some very minor progression attached to equipment.

Probably fits in with the currency you get from enemies.

 

[randir14]

Kind of reminds me of Deus Ex with all the interactive objects and throwables. It's also interesting how similar the level progression is to the final 2011 version.

 

[Morenatsu.]

Fake news!!! You actually just have to wait for that guy to stop walking before you follow him. I guess if you go too early you trigger the triggers before they're meant to be triggered?

could be a broken trigger, dik. He just standed there doing nothing.

The second map, the touch screen you have to use is actually broken, but that's something that's fixed in the patch.

I passed a pipedream puzzle, but got stuck a bit later (near the burning kitchen).

1. cloase da oven
2. cloase da fridg
3. dumbwait
4. poosh jookboox
5. vent tiem
6. find secret hoal in coarnar
7. ???

nevar undar estimaet unreal's unrael unreel knowladge!!

It's not ‘bloat’, it's gloaring Sin-cloning. Bloat it out your ass.

I consider Sin to be bloated as well.

Wolf 3D is bloated with blood-drinking.

 

[Bad Sector]

2001 build looked superb for the time. Those character models are really detailed, wouldn't have looked out of place in a game released 2 or even 3 years later.

3 years later Doom 3 was released with a way more advanced lighting and materials system that made DNF2001 look way too dated, especially at a time when PC gamers and (especially) press were major graphics whores.

In fact DNF devs basically rewrote their renderer after first seeing Doom 3 in action to introduce bump maps and stencil shadows (AFAIK initially they tried to avoid having to make normal maps by treating their existing textures as bump maps but that didn't work for long and they had to remake all materials from scratch).

 

[Morenatsu.]

Oh no our game's going to look dated. How could we ever release this in 2002, or 2003, or whatever. It will look so bad compared to... Unreal 2 I guess. So bad. We'd better remake the whole game and make it come out even later. By then surely we'll be cool and new and fresh.

 

[Drop Duck]

Spoiler

God normal maps and PBR stole something from us.

If I can get this working it will be my GOTY despite being unfinished. The texture work is leagues above final release. What were they thinking when they scrapped their 2001 Deus Ex Nukem With Strippers built?

Doesn't work for me, it just launches the DNF logo and a white box, then my computer slows to a crawl.

Did you fix that? I get the same problem when I install the MegaPatch, game starts overloading my computer on start. Without the fix the game runs fine but the graphics are heavily glitched.

 

[randir14]

^ I had to go into the user config and set it to fullscreen and my monitor's native resolution. After that it worked.

 

[Drop Duck]

This is complete bull, the game is playable and it kicks ass. There's even a functional billiard table and the opening is impressive even today. The glass destruction alone is pure art. I knew this version was awesome ever since I saw that trailer and I was right.

 

[Bad Sector]

Oh no our game's going to look dated. How could we ever release this in 2002, or 2003, or whatever. It will look so bad compared to... Unreal 2 I guess. So bad. We'd better remake the whole game and make it come out even later. By then surely we'll be cool and new and fresh.

That was basically the thinking, yes. But it wasn't really unfounded, Doom 3 was first revealed in Apple's WWDC 2001 showing realtime shadows from multiple lights, skinned character animations, per-pixel lighting with specular reflections and bump mapping, a unified shading pipeline...



...and that was two months before DNF2001's trailer. Sure, in hindsight DNF2001 would look great for a ~2001-2002 release (though compared to what this leak shows i think even NOLF2 looks better), but from a technical perspective (the bread and butter of FPS games at the time) Doom 3 made everything else look stone age by comparison - and chances are they expected it (Doom 3 i mean) to be released much sooner than it did.

 

[ironmask]

So is it possible for modders to finish the game?

 

[Ravielsk]

So is it possible for modders to finish the game?

Yes the leaked built is technically beatable with noclip and from what I read on the chans its a feature complete thing just needs some stitching together but that should not be much of problem.

Here have some gameplay: https://8chan.moe/.media/b9acde7ccb21afa6c78021ef279d50e1875a6c2338c412e4991390f6e4f82864.mp4

 

[gerey]

So is it possible for modders to finish the game?

Possible? Very much yes, not only does the package come with a lot of assets, but also the source code and some tools.

Likely? It depends.

If the leak doesn't get DMCA-ed out of existence, and if the IP holders don't C&D anyone working on the project, it would still be a massive undertaking that requires years of dedication to reach fruition.

While the leak has proven the game is much more complete than we were led to believe, there's still plenty of work required to complete the unfinished levels, reintroduce missing mechanics, touch up assets and fix the content that is already close to being finalized.

 

[Shinji]

Let the drama begin

 

[schru]

Well, Scott Miller says that his plan was to hand the game over in 2004 to Digital Extremes, which he says was a more experienced studio. They did work on Unreal with Epic Games, but Apogee/3D Realms had been developing and publishing games since the eighties, including all the main Duke Nukem games themselves. On the other hand, Digital Extremes was fully responsible for Pariah, a linear, narrative-driven shooter on Unreal Engine 2 from 2005 which is one of the most amusingly atrocious games of that kind ever made.

 

[Infinitron]

Responding to this: https://www.apogeeent.com/devblog/dnf-truth

THE TRUTH ABOUT DNF

Looks like someone leaked a build of Duke Nukem Forever from 2001. Anyone expecting much of a playable game will be disappointed. The game's brilliant trailer from that period definitely over-represented what was actually playable in the game.

(BTW, I have no idea who leaked the build or how they obtained it.)

DNF is the game that destroyed 3D Realms and ended up getting the company sold to an investor in Denmark (where it's still based). While our games like Max Payne and Prey were keeping the company afloat, DNF was a constant money pit for the company and eventually killed the original 3D Realms/Apogee.

IMO, while I was not part of the DNF project, as a company owner I had some good insight into the issues with the game's development.

• We were always understaffed by at least 50%.
  
• We did not have a good development roadmap (at least, I never once saw one), and instead the project was adlibbed too much.
  
• Because of the game's slow development, when new 3D technology became available, the project--in effect--rebooted to make use of the newest tech causing massive delays over and over.

I recognized that DNF was in deep trouble back in 2004 and tried to get the entire game developed by a more experienced studio, Digital Extremes (now famous for Warframe). The owner there was eager to take over DNF from us, and we even had the blessing of our publisher at the time (Take-Two), but this idea was shot down internally. It turned out to be a fatal suicide shot.

In the end we worked out a deal to somehow barely save the project with Gearbox Software, and basically handed over the future of the Duke brand to them with the idea that they'd finish the game. A year or so later, it was released.

It's a very sad story no matter how you look at it. It brought 3D Realms to its knees, all of our development team left or was released, and the 3D Realms name is now owned by someone with no connection to our past.

I do hope that Gearbox can resurrect Duke Nukem at some point. It seems like the obvious move would be to recreate Duke Nukem 3D using Unreal 5. And if it does well, then start making more Duke adventures while also expanding the universe with new characters.

 

[Ryzer]

I do hope that Gearbox can resurrect Duke Nukem at some point.

No, you do not.

 

[randir14]

It's a very sad story no matter how you look at it. It brought 3D Realms to its knees, all of our development team left or was released, and the 3D Realms name is now owned by someone with no connection to our past.

I love this shot at new-3D Realms. I can't stand how the current iteration pretends they were responsible for all the old games. Their CEO even calls himself "the father of the retro shooter" even though he was a school kid back when Duke 3D came out.

 

[Outlander]

2001 build looked superb for the time. Those character models are really detailed, wouldn't have looked out of place in a game released 2 or even 3 years later.

3 years later Doom 3 was released with a way more advanced lighting and materials system that made DNF2001 look way too dated, especially at a time when PC gamers and (especially) press were major graphics whores.

In early 2000s tech was still advancing pretty fast. Just compare Deus Ex (2000) to Doom 3 (2004).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

absolutely SEETHING

 

[randir14]

Interestingly this is actually the second recent Duke leak. Last month someone leaked a canceled PSP game:
https://forums.duke4.net/topic/1198...s-been-released/page__pid__369876#entry369876

 

[Fronzel Neekburm]

 

[Morenatsu.]

Who wants to try multiplayar??

 

[Turtle-Zone 3000]

Someone is backing up George.