Interview: how Duke Nukem Forever is the game 3D Realms wanted

At an event held in Las Vegas before DICE, we were able to get our hands on the latest build of Duke Nukem Forever and speak to some of the people behind the game. This is one of the most anticipated and talked about titles since… well, since the beginning of gaming, and we had a number of questions and concerns.

What we found out was that Gearbox is dedicated to finishing the game 3D Realms began, almost to a fault. Also, controversy can be a good thing, and the team welcomes it. Oh yeah, and a few multiplayer features are revealed.

The strip club

We were brought back into the velvet, closed-door section of a strip club for our interviews. This is the place where private dancers rub themselves all over customers in a more secluded environment. That seems about right.

Talking to me was Steve Gibson, who is the VP of Marketing for Gearbox. I first asked him what the code was like once they got their hands on it. How much of a mess was Duke in at that stage? “It wasn’t ready to ship. By the time we got involved, and by the time it’s ready to ship, it will have been two years,” he said. “You’re talking 100 plus guys involved. It’s hard to quantify. Hey, were the levels done? Obviously not fully, or we wouldn’t be spending all these man-months on the project.”

He told me that it’s hard to say exactly how much of it was done, because their job was making sure the game played well on all platforms. They had to create multiplayer from scratch, and they had to make sure the game’s assets and graphics were up to snuff. Many of these models were made a very long time ago, and weren’t up to the standards of modern games.

What they did was finish the game, not change it. “This is an execution of 3D Realms’ design. We didn’t redesign the game at all. We took their concept, their design, and their ideas, and we finished them. We polished them and executed on them,” Gibson explained. Gearbox now owns the Duke Nukem franchise fully, but Gibson claims every member of the team is only worried about shipping this one game. They’re not thinking about post-launch DLC, or what comes next. Their one concern is shipping Duke Nukem Forever.

That has proven to be a monstrous challenge, especially with an audience that’s so used to mocking the game. The idea behind showing gameplay at PAX was to get the game in the hands of gamers, as well as the press, and to avoid the jaded journalists who may bring their own baggage to the game. This was a way to spread the word to both writers and gamers. He said that the unveiling went “extremely well.”

Gearbox simply doesn’t have an objective view of the game, the character, or the quality of the game. Everyone involved is just way too close. Gibson seemed relieved that the PAX reveal went as well as it did, and he brought up the game’s trending status on Twitter and the response to the trailer. “People still care. It’s not just our 20,000 people in the industry that care. It’s a viable brand.”

The game’s content is always a point of discussion, and Gibson doesn’t like the term “toilet humor”—he prefers “base humor.” Will the game stir up controversy? Maybe. But that’s a good thing, he explained. When someone wants to bring attention to their own agenda, they use a lightning rod—a “focal point.” Something that has the attention of the public already. “If Duke Forever can help further their cause by being that focal point? Happy to do it” Gibson says. “We’re happy to further their cause.”