Happy 10th birthday, Duke Nukem Forever

[JediToren]

That's right, ten years ago today on Sunday, April 27tn, 1997, 3D Realms formally announced the development of Duke Nukem Forever, the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D. Ten years later, it is still in development.

Major development milestones:
April '97: 3D Realms announces the development of the game.
August '97: PC Gamer magazine publishes the first screen shots.
November '97: Scott Miller states that the intended release date is in 1998.
December '97: 3D Realms gets the Quake II engine source code.
May '98: 3D Realms unveils a first demo footage at E3.
June '98: 3D Realms switches to the Unreal engine. George Broussard states that DNF will be out in 1999. Lots of content is scrapped.
'99: DNF upgrades to the Unreal Tournament engine.
December '99: More DNF screenshots. DNF releases a Christmas card implying it will be out soon.
'00: DNF gets 2nd place in Wired magazines Vaporware Award.
December '00: Another Christmas card.
'01: DNF wins 1st place in the Wired Vaporware Awards.
May '01: Another demo video at E3. The last to date.
'02: DNF wins the Vaporware award again.
'02: New programmers are hired and the game engine is retooled. 95% of previous content is scrapped according to Broussard.
'03: Wired gives DNF the Vaporware Lifetime Achievement Award, created solely for DNF.
September '04: Karma physics engine replaced with Meqon engine.
'05 and '06: DNF wins the Vaporware Award two years in a row, again.
January, '07: In-game screen shot released.

During DNF's record 10 years of development, many things have transpired. Also, many historical events have taken less time than DNF's development. Here are some things that have happened in less time than DNF's development:

1) The production and release of all 3 Star Wars prequels, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, along with every Pixar movie except Toy Story.
2) It took less time for NASA and its contractor's to put a man on the moon and return him to the Earth, from Kennedy's pledge before congress to Armstrong's historic "small step."
3) The career's of Britney Spears and Collin Farrel.
4) The two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity were proposed, authorized, announced, designed, launched and successfully landed upon Mars where they have been exploring the surface for over 2.5 years.
5) The U.S.S. Ronald Reagan (the largest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world) was in contract, built, launched, comissioned, and began active duty.
6) The Wright brothers designed and flew the first airplane.
7) The American Revolutionary War, Civil War, World Wars I and II, the development of the Atomic Bomb, and the US involvement in Vietnam each took less time than DNF's development.

For a more complete list, check out The Duke Nukem Forever List.

In 2008, George Broussard will make you his bitch!

[Adrian Laguna]

Truly, Duke Nukem: Forever is a failure of epic proportions.

[Uraniun235]

I stand by my conviction that DNF is basically a gigantic hoax.

[HSRTG]

I stand by my conviction that DNF is basically a gigantic hoax.

Does it matter? This whole thing is entertaining.

[Ma Deuce]

At least it's appropriately named.

[Nephtys]

I stand by my conviction that DNF is basically a gigantic hoax.

Not a hoax, but probably a placeholder to remind people that the IP exists, for 3Drealms to eventually make something duke related. I just think they didn't make anything real after that Quake 2 version with the lots of video. You know, the one where aliens possessed cops in the future and had wormy tentacles like the guys in Resident Evil 4.

[CaptHawkeye]

I find it utterly hilarious that the entire life cycle of another supposedly "vapourware" game occured during the past ten years of DNF's "supposed" existence.