Duke Nukem PC patch increases gun slots

By Tom Phillips Published 29 July, 2011

"Could not" map more to controller.

A PC update for 3/10 shooter Duke Nukem Forever will double its weapon inventory from two to four, developer Gearbox has revealed.

But there are no immediate plans for console editions to get the patch, a post by Gearbox community manager Chris Faylor explained.

Initial Duke developer 3D Realms has previously drawn fire for its decision to limit PC gamers to carrying two guns.

Studio boss George Broussard waded in to the debate, telling ShackNews last year it was a decision based on keeping console controls simple.

"You cannot discount designing games for a modern world and part of that world is consoles where the bulk of the sales can be. And on those consoles you have a controller.

"We tried for a long time to support lots of guns but we simply could not find a nice way to map it to a controller, despite trying 4-5 designs. We gave it enough time and decided to stop swimming against the current and adopt what was basically the 'standard'."

The upcoming PC patch also adds Valve Anti-Cheat System (VAC) support, push-to-talk voice chat, the ability to adjust FOV, "plus other fixes and improvements that are still being tested."

Duke Nukem's first 15 minutes.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Phillips

Tom joined Eurogamer in 2010 and has quickly made his mark writing news and columns and coming up with puntastic straplines. Questionable beard. @TomPhillips151 on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Phillips archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 10 months ago

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

  • Eraysor #1 10 months ago

    This is one of the most ridiculous news articles I have ever read. I've never seen something this fundamental changed after launch before for a start, but to then claim that consoles can't carry 4 weapons for a lack of buttons is bonkers. Surely you could just scroll through them one at a time?! I can remember a lot of old console FPS games that let you carry more than two weapons anyway...

  • gribb #2 10 months ago

    Only two to four...thanks, I guess...

  • berelain #3 10 months ago

    Perhaps they could have tried remapping the button that switches weapon to a weapon menu? Or assigning d-pad left / right to cycling through weapons?

    Crazy suggestions, I know.

  • Sicho #4 10 months ago

    Now go and revide those scores!
    8/10 it is now!
    DNF is awesome!

  • arcam #5 10 months ago

    So it suggests they wanted to have lots of guns all along, but didn't do it because of the console SKUs? That's madness!

    The limit on guns was the games biggest flaw IMO, totally crazy in a Duke Nukem game, so this is one patch that will really improve the game. Good on them I guess, but they should have just done it in the first place.

  • Phantom_Dynamite #6 10 months ago

    The words "Polishing" and "Turd" come to mind.

  • Freek #7 10 months ago

    Ratched and Clank and Resistance laugh at your silly ideas of console weapon limitations.

    CoD and Halo don't have weapon limitations deu to a controller, they are consiouse design choices that deal with balance and gameplay.

  • berelain #8 10 months ago

    @tjtj Its served me well enough for every other game, and even for the likes of BlazBlue. Admittedly its nowhere near as good as the PS3's, but its quite capable of reading left / right inputs...

  • AcidSnake #9 10 months ago

    Isn't Duke 3D on XBLA?
    Doesn't that have more than 2 weapon slots?

    Never mind Perfect Dark (30+ weapon slots)...

  • Murton #10 10 months ago

    DNF, famous not for it's record breaking development cycle but for ruining what was the longest great game streak in history. Until DNF Gearbox had not released one bad game, everything from Half Life; Opposing Force (better than Half Life in my opinion) right up to Borderlands had been great, then DNF happened.

    Once they were given the game to finish off they should have binned everything and started from scratch, at least then we could have had a decent Duke game and Gearbox's record would have remained untarnished.

  • sheldipez #11 10 months ago

    Bioshock handled it well enough on consoles.

  • the_dudefather #12 10 months ago

    Remember how many weapons you could hold in goldeneye with the all weapons cheat on?

    ok, it was a pain in the arse to get the one you wanted

  • Quak #13 10 months ago

    It's not like a game as simplistic as Duke Nukem (run and shoot) manages to fill up a joypad with other commands. All you need is the analogue sticks to move/look, the triggers to shoot and A to jump. Maybe even B to "activate".

    Use the D-pad left/right to cycle. Use the shoulder buttons. Christ, use X to cycle one way and Y the other. It's not rocket science.

  • Trigg3rHippie #14 10 months ago

    What a big pile of bollocks... You're embarassing yourself, Gearbox.

  • menschenfracht #15 10 months ago

    nevertheless borderlands had 4 weapons...
    they must be really clever guys, these Borderlands devs... oh wait

  • King_Edward #16 10 months ago

    Bonkers.

  • Quak #17 10 months ago

    What he means is this:

    Yeah, we fucked up with having only 2 weapons at a time. This is Duke Nukem for heaven's sake, not Halo. Fixing it on PC is easy so we'll do that, but we can't really be arsed to enter into XBL/PSN verification processes so we'll leave the console versions as they are for now, until such a time where we can sell some DLC and maybe add it in there.

  • metalangel #18 10 months ago

    Bollocks, says I.

  • apoc_reg #19 10 months ago

    Yes its EXTREMELY technical to hold down a button to bring up a radial menu isn't it. its PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE!!!

  • Xabarin #20 10 months ago

    Too little, too late

  • tiddex #21 10 months ago

    yea
    h and the game isnīt fun at all because that is bound to wasd-controls

  • Ryze #22 10 months ago


    @ApplesAndOranges


    Bollocks. Hitting the 'weapon' button once can switch to the last weapon, then continue switching in a predictable manner according to weapon class.

    Holding the 'weapon' button for more than 0.x seconds can open a radial menu where the desired weapon can be selected.

    Whether the game pauses, slows or continues at the same pace during the radial menu selection, depends on the nature of the game.

    I'd say it should pause on DNF, with a menu option to change to something else.

    DONE.

  • dangerousbrian0 #23 10 months ago

    as normal console owners get shafted when it comes to great ideas via patch due to something stupid example the team fortress 2 updates pc gets them but 360 does not due to download size limitation max it out to 2 gig each content yeah ok we may have a long list of dlc content in the game data on your hard drive but that doesnt matter problem solved and now this like people said use a scroll wheel where you hold y button the game pauses in the background while you scroll through the menu so you can choose the weapon you want to use all it is i think is half arsed programming as well but i bet they will or may suddenly find away when the dlc comes out for it
    Edited by dangerousbrian0 at 29/07/11 @ 14:01

  • Ryze #24 10 months ago

    It's nothing to do with anger, you apologetic fanboy cretin, it's about poor game design, and people making bullshit statements to cover for their shit games design decisions.

  • username84 #25 10 months ago

    Half-life 2 had a brilliant weapon selection system. Oh but Half life 2 was good.

  • Darren #26 10 months ago

    There's already a button to toggle between two weapons, Y on the 360 controller I think, so while not ideal, what's to stop them using the same button to cycle between FOUR different weapons? :?

  • kongzi #27 10 months ago

    it's called a radial menu and it's awesome. Okay, maybe not, but it works.. that's more than could be said of DNF.

  • Lord_Gremlin #28 10 months ago

    And why Bioshock lets you carry everything with you on PS3? Make console patch, you sobs, or I'll never buy a Gearbox game again.

  • KDR_11k #29 10 months ago

    Wait, didn't Turok 2 have over 20 guns on the N64 controller?

  • desomondo #30 10 months ago

    Good improvements to a otherwise dull game. Personally I'm more impressed with the adjustable FOV than the extra weapon slots - I really wish more FPS games would include it.

    Unfortunately Duke 4ever didn't suck because of either issues: it sucked because it was boring. Tiny, cramped, tedious levels, filled with only a handful of enemies to shoot, topped off with long load times... it's the exact same issues that plague most Unreal Engine 2 games back in 2003! That really tells you just has old the most recent build of this game is!
    Edited by desomondo at 30/07/11 @ 00:57

  • holloguts #31 10 months ago

    I'm glad they put a demo on xbl for this game, saved me a fortune. What rubbish. They should have left it alone. The developers had no idea what Duke Nukem was really about and tried to simply fill the game with toilet humour to the extreme in order to get laughs and newspaper 'shock, horror' reports to increase sales (failed). Gameplay was sad, 2 weapons only was sad. the excessive language was boring (been done everywhere). I could get more freedom riding a train.

    The game seemed to have been created by amateur trainee developers aged around 15.

    And to say you cant map more than two weapons to a console controller is just pathetic, they could have asked some real coders. Send these amatuers back to uni, there's a cleaning job available.

    Unfortunately, it seems the abuse will continue for another outing according to the developer. What a shame..........

  • dudefella #32 10 months ago

    Complete and utter bollocks. Weapon wheel. Has been done in many games. What a pathetic excuse.

  • subtlesnake #33 10 months ago

    "DNF, famous not for it's record breaking development cycle but for ruining what was the longest great game streak in history. Until DNF Gearbox had not released one bad game, everything from Half Life; Opposing Force (better than Half Life in my opinion) right up to Borderlands had been great, then DNF happened."

    Gearbox didn't make DNF, though, so the 'streak' continues with their internally developed titles. It's all a matter of opinion, though (was Hell's Highway "great"?)

  • SimonM7 #34 10 months ago

    It's not like you ever twitch change guns in Duke anyway. This isn't quakeworld.