Fan-made Duke Nukem gets the go-ahead

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 14 October, 2010

Duke Nukem: Next-Gen free for all.

A fan made revision of 1996 PC shooter Duke Nukem 3D will be released after Duke Nukem license holder Gearbox Software gave the project approval.

Duke Nukem: Next-Gen, as it's called, is built upon Gears of War developer Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3.

The game will include a three episode single-player campaign and a full-fledged multiplayer component, and will be released free to all, according to a post on the official Gearbox forum.

"I contacted George Broussard and Scott Miller [of original Duke Nukem creator 3D Realms], to start a conversation about the project," project lead and level designer Frederik "Fresch" Schreiber explained.

"The shots managed to convince Scott Miller to a certain degree, but the project was only doable if Take-Two would approve it.

"Thinking that Gearbox might have a better relationship to Take-Two than 3D Realms, I contacted AdamF, who passed me through to PJ Putnam, vice president and general counsel of Gearbox Software.

"Luckily Gearbox was interested in supporting the project, which resulted in a personal non-commercial license to Duke Nukem." Boom.

DNNG will be released "when it's done", but fans will be able to play the "first official milestone release" – a multiplayer Duke match test - ahead of completion. Screens are below.

Gearbox is of course hard at work finishing up work on Duke Nukem Forever, set for release on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 next year.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (28) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • StooMonster #1 2 years ago

    Reminds me of Black Mesa, the mod to remake Half-Life 1 in Source engine ... when's that going to be "done"?

  • superbeast2010 #2 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 13:33:56 08-05-2012

  • Toadie48 #3 2 years ago

    Awesome, they haven't just straight put it into the Unreal 3 engine, they've also added some neat things, like the sparks in screenshot number 5 that wasn't there in the original. Im glad this fan made Duke remake is getting so much attention, because the team is good with computer coding and the teams creative aswell.

    Can't wait to play the final build, hopefully online with leaderboards.

  • HisDudness #4 2 years ago

    Not the most thrilling choice of location for screenshot comparisons...

  • coolbritannia #5 2 years ago

    Black Mesa's still not out? I saw trailers for that years ago....

  • JayeM #6 2 years ago

    Good PR, never hurts.

  • irve77 #7 2 years ago

    i'll still stick with the DN3d high res pack for now ... using that reminded me just how much FPS games have changed !

  • schnide #8 2 years ago

    This looks great, and it's nice to see Gearbox supporting the fans/community/etc whether this comes out eventually or not.

  • telboy007 #9 2 years ago

    Ha, nice work on the screenshots. Loved playing that game on me Saturn, as a save of that and quake led to...

    DEATH TANK!!!!! WHOOO!!!!!!

  • sonicyoda #10 2 years ago

    Damn, More Duke! And Gearbox approved! I'd very much like to see this finished. Keep up the good work guys!

  • Bernkastel #11 2 years ago

    Ha, nice work on the screenshots. Loved playing that game on me Saturn, as a save of that and quake led to...

    DEATH TANK!!!!! WHOOO!!!!!

    I think I played Death Tank more often than the actual game. That was brilliant.

  • RobotRocker #12 2 years ago

    The dividends for betting on Duke are starting to come in.

  • MuchoPies #13 2 years ago

    Superb work! Respect due fans will buy this in a second. Shake it baby

  • arcam #14 2 years ago

    In other news, Steam gave me a Duke Nukem Forever demo CD key yesterday.

    That message was something I never thought I'd see.

  • mashk #15 2 years ago

    Thing with most fan projects is they never come to fruition though. I'll get excited when it comes out.

  • Malek86 #16 2 years ago

    Good move by Gearbox. Now if only Squenix and Nintendo were that understanding.

  • Hunam #17 2 years ago

    +1

    That Chrono Trigger remake fiasco still hurts today.

  • StooMonster #18 2 years ago

    coolbritannia: Black Mesa's still not out?

    Nope.

    The last time I checked it was due end of 2009, but then new year came and went and http://www.blackmesasource.com/ states "When will Black Mesa be done? We have always gone for a "when it's done" approach."

    So I'm not holding my breath for this Duke Nukem mod.

  • Toadie48 #19 2 years ago

    @Toadie48 - seriously y do I only have +3 for my earlier comment right now. Im I that stupid and fuc**d up that I can't come up with a comment that gets +5. Why the fu** am I even alive? Fu** being alive I can't even get +5. Flipping failure 24/7.

    P.s. everyone minus my earlier comment, it's total gay talk. Let me play my N64 and pretend it's 2001 coz thats the only era I was worth anything in. I should have dies off in the N64 era.
    Edited by Toadie48 at 14/10/10 @ 12:23

  • rojjer #20 2 years ago

    What happened to the Duke Nukem 3D conversion being worked on using the source engine? 3D Realms issued a cease and desist order, but now they're six feet deep maybe it can come back? It looked pretty neat from what I saw..

  • randompanda #21 2 years ago

    Death Tank was amazing

  • coolbritannia #22 2 years ago

    That's really disappointing about Black Mesa, loved Half Life 2 on 360 but only played the first game on the PS2. Would love a hi-def version.

  • sink257 #23 2 years ago

    Is the game being developed using the UDK or as a mod of UT3?

  • telboy007 #24 2 years ago

    [off topic]
    Death Tank, ahh... the memories. Managed to get together 5 Saturn controllers and one of those expansion ports and played it at uni quite a bit, excellent fun.
    Edited by telboy007 at 14/10/10 @ 21:22

  • Iain815 #25 2 years ago

    No matter how much the Black Mesa dev team claim they have a release date in sight, I'll never believe them.

    All the best to them on this mod though.

  • Zaiz #26 2 years ago

    I remember seeing stuff about Black Mesa two-three years ago. I'm pretty sure this project is going to beat it out the gate, though.

  • Kostabi #27 2 years ago

    Yet another reason to love Gearbox.

    It's great that after over a decade of waiting we might get two quality Duke releases, and one is going to be free. Huzzah!

  • space_ace #28 2 years ago

    sweet demo, but it's impossible to finish such a project. the original game is epic in scope and these textures and animation don't create themselves. enthusiasm is great and all, but this is pure fantasy. we'd rather see the release of "duke nukem forever"... oh wait.