2009

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever.

To do: The works... Screenshots, Developer comments/statements, some portfolio images (namely screenshots) and leaked videos. Elaborate more on the suspending of development and layoffs, things that occurred and the aftermath of the news. Videos in question: Portfolio videos from James Houska, Bryan Brewer, and Jay Brushwood. Extra footage from The Jace Hall Show. Expand info around the lawsuit (and summarize it as well.) Shacknews has plenty of good articles outlining court documents.

Now creeping into its 12th year of development, many at 3D Realms are hopeful of a 2010 release date, but things would quickly go array by early May...

January 2009#

January 12th#

George Broussard makes this following post to Twitter.¹

Game developers often say "Cutting is shipping". We begin this year with a vengeance and a chainsaw.

²

Worked on menu design and layout with Pete and Layne for a couple of hours.

January 26th#

George posts another tweet saying that he is flying over to Take-Two's offices in New York to demonstrate the game. He presents the game to Take-Two either on the day or the day tomorrow.³

Packing up to go visit our publisher and show them the game and cool sh!t to get them hyped and excited. Cold and rainy day to fly.

January 28th#

⁴

Dallas is icy. Hopefully we don't crash. If so expect a slight delay on the game.

⁵

Working on item interface and 360 d-pad layouts.

February 2009#

February 9th#

⁶

Looking at item interface on screen again. We're trying to finalize some core systems and polish them up.

February 11th#

⁷

A peek inside our task database at some resolved issues.

February 13th#

⁸

Working on hud impact and hit effects today. Been in a while but need polish and attention. These things really contribute to the "feel".

⁹

Putting in some new main menu sound effects. Beefy sounding.

¹⁰

Just basic custom stuff. Being a shooter you don't tend to need EA sports/racing style interfaces.

April 2009#

April 13th#

George posts a tweet stating that the team is closing out another milestone, says that they have 71 more tasks left to complete, and claims that the team probably started with 800-900.¹¹

Closing out a milestone this week. 71 more tasks to do and we started with probably 800-900. Been a good push. Next one starts Monday.

April 15th#

¹²

Heading home. Got some music for the game and commented. Have a couple more things to close out tomorrow for milestone. 24 is on!!!

April 18th#

¹³

Bought a 128gig external SSD drive and am copying the game down to it now. I have one in my Macbook Air and love it. They are great.

April 28th#

Eric Von Rothkirch would record sounds of a pinball for use in Duke Nukem Forever. Joe Siegler would record a short video of a session.¹⁴

May 2009#

Early this month, 3D Realms demands an additional $6,000,000 to finish the game. Take-Two allegedly agreed to this but would only offer $2.5 million upfront and another $2.5 million when the game is completed.

May 6th#

Development of Duke Nukem Forever is suspended. It would be claimed by David Riegel in April 2011 that the game was around 75-80% complete at the time.

Joe Siegler would recount the day on his personal blog some years later.¹⁵

So it was quite the shock when George Broussard & Brian Hook gathered the entire company in the lobby of 3D Realms in the late morning of May 6, 2009 for a meeting that had the words out of George’s mouth (and I quote), “Basically we’re closing down the studio”. It went on from there...

May 8th#

3D Realms lets go of not only the DNF team, but their entire staff. A farewell message on the website is published.¹⁶

Thanks for being fans and for all your support.

Edit: We've had numerous people inquire as to who is in the photo, so to that, here's a list of who is who in the photo:

SITTING/KNEELING L-R: Chris Cummings, Randy Forsyth, David Riegel, Pat Jones, Pete Knepley, Jay Brushwood, Dave Ratti, George Broussard, Allen Blum, Chris DeSimone, Brian Hook (pink tie), Quinn DelHoyo (GDC shirt), Scott MacLean, Rob "MacGuvyer" Faison, Andrew "Sonic" Kerschner, Bryan Turner, Steve Blackburn, Kaiser the dog.

STANDING L-R: Brian Lawson, John Pollard, James Houska, Andrew Baker, Eric Von Rothkirch, Chris Skelton, Mark Skelton, Gary Buchanan, Kevin Green, Joe Siegler, Rick Huenick, Chris Smith, Ben "Too Happy" Eoff, Trammell "T-ray" Isaac, David Carter, Bryan Brewer, Layne Johnson, Brad Jacobs, John Anderson.

While it would be reported that 3D Realms had ceased to exist as a corporate entity, this was incorrect and they very much continued to exist as one, albeit only as a publisher.

Portfolio Leaks#

More content such as concept art and model renders, can be seen on this page here.

James Houska, Bryan Brewer and Jay Brushwood.

Tramell "T.Ray" Isaac would publish a series of screenshots

Notably he would also post screenshots of areas later seen in The Doctor Who Cloned Me DLC.

May 10th#

A user known as "cubeblue" claiming to be the brother of a developer would post various details about the game in a Shacknews Chatty thread discussing Bryan Brewer's demo reel.¹⁷

I can confirm that there was far more completed than what this video implies.

The guy obviously stripped away details in some of the video to highlight the motion and animations.

I've played a good bit of the game, my bro worked there. That scene with the big alien in the football field? That's the first level, it's Duke playing an arcade version of Duke 3D inside his huge Duke mansion. This was last summer and I saw four different levels and environments that were fully playable (some just needed some polish).

They basically started making the game again from scratch (as they've done a few times) about a year and a half ago.

They had a hard cut-off date for development (11/2009) and a ship date (4/2010). They were stupid close to actually finishing this thing.

Was it going to be worth 12 years wait? Of course not. But it looked like a solid offering from a studio that had spent 2.5 years working on a title.

So did they, apparently.

The story I got from my brother was long and drawn out, but my understanding is that basically they were running low on capital and fully expected to get an injection from the publisher. Because of an old fight with the publisher (3DR apparently audited them on Max Payne earnings and found they were holding back, so the relationship was already hurt after that) there was some personal aspect to why they chose not to invest.

Plus, I'm sure the general outlook of the economy didn't help and then, to be fair, what credibility did 3DR have left after promising for years? As the other fellow said, even if it looked like they were so close, how could anyone be sure someone wouldn't make a dumb move and decide start over again or whatever.

I don't know all of the details, but I know the 3DR folks were just as shocked that they came this close only to have the rug pulled out. I heard they even shopped this to Valve, id, and other studios begging out of respect for the IP for loans to keep this thing going just long enough to tie it up. But of course everyone else has their money tied up into their own current projects. The money for this sort of thing has been drying up and people aren't willing to toss it to someone with such a poor track record, even if they see the game is nearly done. It's just too risky.

... or they didn't have the free capital sitting around to just hand over to someone else, a competitor nonetheless. I don't know the full story, I'm regurgitating what my brother told me and I assume he heard this from George, but who knows what's missing. I'm sure there are parts of the story we aren't hearing, but I doubt we'll ever hear it all.

May 11th-12th#

Take-Two has had enough and has filed a lawsuit against 3D Realms for their failure to deliver the game among other things. While the documents are dated on the 11th, the documents have stamps that state they were filed in the New York County Clerk's office on the 12th. Also, around this time an order is given to 3D Realms not to temper or transfer the source code and assets of the game.

French gaming website No Frag would publish a bunch of screenshots from the game.¹⁸

Also published by No Frag was three diagrams for puzzles in levels.

May 14th#

When asked if 3D Realms had received the $12 Million from Take-Two in a Shacknews Chatty thread, Scott Miller states that they had received nothing.¹⁹

No. We didn't get a penny of that money. This, along with so much else, is 100% spin, being eaten up by those who have no clue whatsoever. But, we cannot talk yet. We will, soon...

May 17th#

A user known as "DukenukemForeverXX" claiming to be a former developer makes this comment in a thread on the r/programming subreddit.²⁰ While the authenticity and identity of the user hasn't never been confirmed, the details provided do match up with other information now known.

Dear Reddit:

Don't panic. I was one of the programmers for 3D Realms and I assure you that Duke Nuke'm [sic] Forever will be finished. While this is the end for 3D Realms; several of those key persons involved have purchased the rights for Duke Nuke'm [sic] Forever.

Our resources may be limited but we are dedicated to finishing the game. We now have a open schedule and freedom from those not directly involved in the creative process. We have set a tentative beta release date of Spring 2010.

Thanks to all those supporting us through this.

May 18th#

3D Realms issues a press release to several media outlets explaining their side of the story regarding the lawsuit. These outlets go on to write articles about the press release.²¹

3D Realms Release Pertaining to Recent Events Surrounding Duke Nukem Forever

Dallas, TX (May 18, 2009) - In light of recent press articles and statements by Take-Two (to the media and in a lawsuit), we want to set the record straight on some issues.

Despite rumors and statements to the contrary, 3D Realms (3DR) has not closed and is not closing. 3DR retains ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. Due to lack of funding, however, we are saddened to confirm that we let the Duke Nukem Forever (DNF) development team go on May 6th, while we regroup as a company. While 3DR is a much smaller studio now, we will continue to operate as a company and continue to license and co-create games based upon the Duke Nukem franchise.

As some of you may know, Take-Two filed a lawsuit last week containing various accusations and claims against 3DR and the uncompleted DNF game. Take-Two never paid 3DR advances or any signing bonus or any other funds related to DNF, up until July 2008, at which time they paid $2.5m in connection with another agreement for an unannounced game. This is the sum total Take-Two has paid 3DR in connection with DNF. Take-Two claims that they paid $12m to GT Interactive/Infogrames to acquire the publishing rights for the DNF game. To be clear, 3DR was not a party to that transaction and did not receive any money from it. When the DNF game was originally signed with GT Interactive in 1998, GT paid 3DR a $400,000 signing bonus. Up until July 2008, this was the only publisher money we received for the DNF game. Meanwhile, 3DR put over $20m into the production of DNF.

Take-Two retains publishing rights for the DNF game, although 3DR retains certain rights to sell the game directly to the public. Late last year, 3DR began negotiations with Take-Two to provide funding to complete the DNF game. In the meantime, 3DR was hitting mutually-agreed milestones, despite not having a new agreement finalized. Take-Two was well aware that 3DR needed the funding to continue the DNF game development. Suddenly, after months of negotiations, Take-Two materially changed the parameters of the proposed funding agreement. 3DR informed Take-Two that it could not financially afford the changes Take-Two was suggesting and would be forced to release the team if an agreement was not reached. Take-Two made a last minute proposal to acquire the Duke Nukem franchise and the 3DR development team. Take-Two's proposal was unacceptable to 3DR for many reasons, including no upfront money, no guarantee minimum payment, and no guarantee to complete the DNF game. From 3DR's perspective, we viewed Take-Two as trying to acquire the Duke Nukem franchise in a "fire sale." Those negotiations fell through on May 4th, a deal never materialized, and the DNF team was sadly released a few days later.

Less than a week after the DNF team was released, Take-Two filed its lawsuit in New York, seeking immediate temporary injunctive relief. The court denied Take-Two's request for a temporary restraining order. While we cannot comment on the details of the ongoing lawsuit, we believe Take-Two's lawsuit is without merit and merely a bully tactic to obtain ownership of the Duke Nukem franchise. We will vigorously defend ourselves against this publisher.

May 29th#

The case is transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.^{(citation needed)}

To do: Locate source of this

June 2009#

Nine former employees of 3D Realms; namely Benjamin Wagley, Chris DeSimone, Andrew Kerschner, Allen H. Blum III, Andrew Baker, Brad Jacobs, Robert Faison, Eric Von Rothkirch and David Riegel would continue work on the game at their homes (primary Riegel's house), and later form Triptych Games.²²

June 19th#

3D Realms files a response to Take-Two's lawsuit, becoming noticed by gamepolitics.com on the 22nd. In the document, 3D Realms responds to the allegations. The full document can be read here.

July 2009#

July 8th#

Scott Miller would make a post on Facebook.²³

If you haven’t heard, he took a little break, but is back in the game now.

July 9th#

Triptych Games officially resumes development of the game.

Miller would post two images of the Cycloid Emperor and the Battlelord on Facebook.

July 13th#

Valeta Wensloff is flown into Triptych's office to co-write the story.

July 14th#

More images from Miller from Facebook, showing a gigantic Battlelord in Lake Mead.

August 2009#

The final script of the game is written by Valeta Wensloff, Kristen Haglund and David Riegel on behalf of Triptych and approved by 3D Realms. Triptych would later get to surprise Duke voice actor Jon St. John with a phone call, telling him: "Hell has finally frozen over."

Much of the voice acting present in the final release appears to have been recorded in 2009, as evident by the internal Triptych trailer and comments that Jon St. John had made in a 2011 interview posted to YouTube.

August 21st#

Gamasutra conducts an interview with Scott Miller were 3D Realms and Duke are brought up. Miller declines to comment about the game but does go on to reaffirm that 3D Realms did not cease to exist as a corporate entity.²⁴

The Future I've read that 3D Realms is closing. Is that true?

SM: No, 3D Realms is not closing. The internal development is no longer a part of this business, though.

It seems like the whole blog world exploded talking about Duke Nukem Forever stopping production.

SM: There's a lawsuit around this, so I really can't get into any details on that.

I'm just worried about the future of 3D Realms.

SM: Our future is fine. We have, I think at last count, 11 or 12 projects in the works. One of them is coming out next week. Another one is coming out in about six weeks. Both of those are on the iPhone. We have some major games in production still. So we're fine. That's not an issue at all.

So did you just lay off the development staff for Duke Nukem Forever? Is that what happened?

SM: Right.

November 2009#

Watch on YouTubeTriptych Games finishes their work on the singleplayer campaign. An internal trailer is made around this time. This trailer would be included in the final game as an extra.

Some promotional trailers for the game, such as the trailer from the demo used footage from this trailer.

November 28th#

Miller posts on Facebook an image of an EDF Tropper fight the Cycloid Emperor.

December 2009#

December 21st#

Wired magazine publishes online and later in their January 2010 issue the famous article: Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem.²⁵ In it, journalist Clive Thompson provides an autopsy of the game's development. Much of the information known about the game's development is sourced from this article, including on this wiki.

December ?#

in the first printed issue of gaming magazine Gamesauce, Scott Miller discusses upcoming Duke projects, many of which never come to pass. On the topic of Forever he says the following:²⁶

we've never said that Duke Nukem Forever has ceased development,"... "yes, we released the internal team, but that doesn't correlate to the demise of the project.

December 26th#

Watch on YouTubeAn unofficial compilation of gameplay would be leaked by a former developer. Originally the video had no audio and was later dubbed over with Brandon Blume's Grabbag Megamix, stock sound effects and a Duke Nukem impersonation by Nukemdave.

References#

Tweets#

To do: Incorporate/reference this information below into article.

• Keighley chats with Take-2 President Christoph Hartmann on GameTrailers TV, with a small DNF mention
• Lawsuit stuff
  • Court documents from online library
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20110629012727/http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a5LJCCRIwYg0
  • https://www.duke4ever.altervista.org/textdocs.html#take2
  • https://duke4ever.altervista.org/textdocs/C_PDF.pdf
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20110103103659/http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/06/22/court-filing-2kgames-developing-quotduke-beginsquot
  • https://kotaku.com/5259942/3d-realms-were-not-closing-spent-20-million-on-duke-nukem-forever
• Tramell Isaac blog stuff.
  • https://forums.duke4.net/topic/1091-the-wild-ride-t-ray-isaacs-story/
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20090510073010/http://talkinrealatyou.blogspot.com:80/2009/05/end-is-beginning.html
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20090617171710/http://talkinrealatyou.blogspot.com/2009/06/wild-ride-part-1.html
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20091229035632/http://talkinrealatyou.blogspot.com:80/2009/06/wild-ride-part-foe.html
• https://www.shacknews.com/article/58580/whats-happening-to-duke-nukem
• https://www.shacknews.com/article/58519/duke-nukem-developer-3d-realms
• Resources about the portfolio leaks
  • https://shacknews.com/article/58562/duke-nukem-forever-gameplay-footage
  • https://www.gematsu.com/2009/05/duke-nukem-forever-leaks-screens-story-details-levels-and-models
  • https://nofrag.com/duke-nukem-forever-les-documents-de-design-des-levels/
  • https://www.shacknews.com/article/58570/more-duke-nukem-forever-artwork
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20090510072056/http://www.joystiq.com/2009/05/08/laid-off-3d-realms-staff-show-off-duke-nukem-forever-concept-art/
  • https://www.wired.com/2009/05/artist-unveils-images-from-duke-nukem-forever/
• Mark Skelton response to his portfolio gaining attention:

What exactly does that matter to you? These characters have already been seen in the trailers and released screen shots. Why would you be worried about it? This is a Zbrush site, and Im posting zbrush work.. lets just go with that and leave the other stuff to me... yeah? Im trying to get a job and support my family, if youve got a problem with that... then I dont know what to tell you...

I was at 3drealm [sic] almost exactly 2 years. a lot of the staff were under 3 years. I took the job because if any company on the planet needed help finishing a game, 3d realms did, and we ALMOST pulled it off. In 2 years of being there, we were able to take this convoluted mess and make it into a badass game. I wish the world would have seen it to realize how cool and fun it was. The team we had was fantastic. But, no one will ever know..

• https://web.archive.org/web/20090510210934/http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/showpost.php?p=867590&postcount=129
• https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2009/05/duke-nukem-forever-was-the-glue-that-kept-us-together/
• Vimeo video from Jeron Moore showing off gameplay from September
• Scott Miller Facebook shenanigans.
  • "Something big and unexpected will soon be announced."
  • Post on November 26th: "Duke Nukem doesn't stay down for long."
  • Posts on December 2nd: "These guys don't stand a chance" and "Heh heh, who am I talking about? You got two guesses."
  • Post on December 7th: "Duke Nukem says it's gonna happen, and when it does, shock and awesome. "
• https://forums.duke4.net/topic/2362-the-realistic-scenario-for-rlease-of-dnf-release-christmas-2010/
• Duke4.net stuff.
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20200618022235/http://legacy.duke4.net/news.php?default.0.300
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20200618022240/http://legacy.duke4.net/news.php?default.0.310
  • https://forums.duke4.net/topic/812-dnf-3d-realms-speculations/
  • https://forums.duke4.net/topic/1584-steves-screenshots-thread/
• D-Day (return of the game tease) here and here.
• Jace Hall would reveal more gameplay footage of his visit to 3D Realms that was recorded for the first episode but was left unused. He then discusses how many people, such as him, had been waiting for the game. He showcases framed mementoes to his bet with Rick Raymo from 1998.
• Brousard Twitter and Tweets with various small updates (Add sources).
• Jon St. John recounting being called up in 2009 (he incorrectly states 2008) at ConnectiCon 2011