Earlier this month, we shared a story about the 2001 version of Duke Nukem Forever. As we reported, Frederik Schreiber, VP at 3DRealms, claimed that this unreleased version was almost 90% complete and feature a different tone and atmosphere than the game we received in 2011. And during the latest episode of the Nerdvana Live Show, Randy Pitchford gave an update on Duke Nukem Forever 2001.
As Randy Pitchford said, Take-Two has all the IP rights for Duke Nukem Forever. And while Gearbox was able to acquire a license that allows it now to release Duke Nukem Forever (think of it as a sub-license), it does not have any license that will allow it to release legacy stuff for free.
Pitchford claimed that Gearbox is working on that (acquiring that license), though he claimed that Gearbox will most likely include the 2001 build in a new package for Duke Nukem Forever (meaning that it will not be available for free to all previous owners of the game).
As Randy Pitchford put it:
“I think the way to do it is to have a new package with things like Forever and all the old Megaton stuff and maybe the 20th anniversary… basically everything we can get together and then have the old DNF stuff as sort of this free giveaway, this free bonus that you can have access to. That’s right now the easiest legal path to do this.”
Pitchford also commented on the content of the Duke Nukem Forever 2001 build, claiming that people will be disappointed with what they see there.
“I was the same with anybody else when I saw the trailers in 1999 and the trailers in 2001 and I thought “That looks awesome. I want that.” The actual people that worked on this stuff they did some great work but they never… there was no game. Right? So if you have in your mind that there’s a game that you can play, you will be disappointed. What you’ll have are little vignettes/snippets, incomplete pieces of stuff.”
Pitchford concluded that the 90% claim was inaccurate (he joked that maybe 9% was actually complete), that there is no game in the 2001 build and that gamers should temper their expectations if this build ever sees the light of day.
But there you have it, we may see and play the 2001 build of Duke Nukem Forever in a future package of Duke Nukem.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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