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this game was announced when i was in kindergarten. I've literally graduated high school, gone to college, Dropped out, cried my eyes out over my future and then accpeted my fate as a chode before this game was released in my mid 20s

"Enter Randy Pitchford" Cannot think of a worse omen tbh

One of my old friends mom did voice over work for Duke nukem and alien colonial marines. I think she's the reason they tanked.

With this information I just realized something; DNF was in development for so long, Jon St. John had enough time to voice Big the Cat in *SIX* Sonic titles. DNF was in development HELL all the while Sonic Adventure came out. Can you imagine Jon recording his lines for those Sonic games and wondering to himself about the progress of Duke Nukem? Holy and shit.

Oh God, I just now got this: Duke Nukem 3D was the third game and Duke Nukem Forever was the fourth. “Four-ever.”

DNF: a common acronym for Did Not Finish this project was doomed from the start

Duke Nukem Forever: takes over 15 years to release, has a creator who doesn't know what he's doing, wastes money and is just generally a bad game Yandere simulator: Write that down, write that down!

Duke Nukem 2001 has finally leaked. Not only is it fully playable, we have the fucking source code, too.

The "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad." by Shigeru Miyamoto doesn't apply well with this game xD

30 years from now we'll probably see an episode on Star Citizen after its cancellation during the first Beta in 2032

as a game developer myself I literally stopped the video and cupped my face in my hands when I heard "weekly profit share when the game came out". I cannot count how many times I've been approached with this absolute pipedream vapormodel of a business strategy. I have never in my life heard of any game or any company ever attempting to do that and meeting with any tangible form of success. That was the bit that actually made me shudder a little. Just the utterance of that mere concept is the truest sign one could ever get that someone is absolutely full of shit and you should run so fast it rips the soles out of your shoes.

So I actually met Randy at a show before the game launched and I told him I had been waiting for the game for fifteen years. He kinda scoffed and said "oh, I'm sorry" before moving on. I met him again a few years later at that same show and we talked about how jazzed I was for his new game, "Aliens: Colonial Marines". He remembered me and seemed to again be apologetic.

It still baffles my mind with all the constant engine switching and backtracking, caused by a singular man. Finish what you worked on, and *THEN* you work on a sequel using new engines and whatever else you want to chuck in there. I'm honestly surprised that he can even keep his Twitter posts consistent.

Ah, yes, one of my friends is a die hard Duke Nukem fan and during the years when Duke Nukem Forever was in development hell, we'd constantly tease him about it using the many mocking titles fans came up with such as: -Duke Nukem Whenever, -Duke Nukem If Ever, -Duke Nukem Whatever, -Duke Nukem Probably Never, -Duke Nukem Takes Forever. Then when the game was finally released and failed the stick the landing, I felt so bad for him I went out and bought a copy of the game and played through it, just so he would have at least one friend with whom he could talk about the game. I didn't particularly enjoy it (I wasn't a fan of the early games either, tbh), but I didn't have to suffer for too long because he quickly moved on to other titles and now it's a topic that only comes up once in a blue moon. RIP Duke. Can't personally say I'll miss you because I really don't care, but I'm sure you'll be missed but many others anyway.

Not gonna lie, it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that that "commercial" for Duke Nuken wasn't something real you'd inserted into the episode. In my defense, you captured the mood of 90s commercials extremely well.

The sad part is, that E3 2001 trailer STILL looks amazing today. I would have paid good money for that game.

The quality and research that goes into these videos, man.

I was that guy! Th Local Game Stop where I lived in the late 1990s found my preorder and yea it sucked.

My favorite thing about this entire debacle is a line from one of the No More Heroes games where one of the characters, Silvia, says to the protagonist, "You don't want this to be No More Heroes Forever, do you?" It's both sad and hilarious that even other games and devs poked fun at the development hell that DNF went through.

I still remember, as teenager I talked to my dad about getting Steam, and my dad just said "take mine, I don't need it anymore, it's just depressing" and sitting in the library was DNF, played for an hour. Truly a depressing sight to behold. My dad stopped gaming ages ago and apparently had wanted to play that game all this time, but was out of the loop on why it had taken so long.

They should totally make a game where Duke Nukem is an old man cracking lame, outdated jokes and references that his badass children don't like or understand. I like Duke Nukem as a character. It's just a shame he lives in Dumpstertown now.

Imagine how many Duke games there'd be if the man had just finished what was started and made more with the new tech in that 15 years. Also can I just point out how depressing it is to know that he lost his game to a former employee?

"Aliens: Colonial Marines is loved by all". Wait, what? *suddenly changes to shitty score". "Oh you."

come to today and George Broussard is praising naughty dog for employee crunch

Ah yes, Randy "She's a fighter, hold her tighter" Pitchford.

Why is there no more Duke? Two answers: *George Broussard, and Randy Pitchford.*

Who else is here after the shit storm of George B. on twitter getting mad at the community for not liking crunch and the community calling him out on his failure as a dev?

In alternate universe where this came wasn't condemned to the lowest circle of game dev hell it released in 2000 and became a hit classic to be remade in 2020 and Daikatana was a best seller

It boggles my mind that executives, producers, whatever, would allow the development of this game to drag on for so very long. Many games get taken off life support if they undergo that many changes.

The fact that this game was profitable is a true achievement. Like seriously...

When I was in Highschool when Forever launched on a weekend. A group of school 'mates' discussed how it was going to be the most epic game ever, they would be playing it all through the school year and wouldn't let us girls play a second of it, as it was made for boys like them. I asked them how it was the next week and none of them could look me in the eye and I asked if any of them regreted not getting Dead Space 2 earlyer that year.

The development cycle for this game has been a joke for so long that a random scientist in one of the Half-Life expansions (Opposing Force, I think it was) is secretly named Duke Takem Forever.

My animation teacher in high school was an animator for this game. He defends it to this day.

The one overarching lesson everyone should take from this: If the man on the top is not a grownup, your project is *doomed.* Maturity, calmness under fire, self-control, focus, and _following the freaking plan through to the end_ are mandatory.

Who's watching this now that Georgie Boy is back again flapping his gums on twitter about how crunch is a good thing?

About the title being a reference to "Batman Forever".... well it is also based on numbers - DN, DN2 DN3D, DN4EVER

Wasn't it also revealed like a year or two ago that both the 2001 version and the 2004 versions of DNF were damn near close to being finished before George Broussard and his ballooning ambitions pulled the plug and made the entire team start over from scratch again? I could have sworn that there was a 4Chan thread that had a person leaking a bunch of in-depth information and screenshots about every version of DNF that was made before the game's release in 2011. DNF 2001 in particular was supposedly going to be very Deus Ex like at the time(hub world level design, quests,stats and all).

Have you considered possibly branching out from just games to notorious hardware flops as well? Stuff like the Ouya (Infamous kickstarter-backed system with tech weaker than your smartphone from 5 years ago), Virtual Boy (A prototype shoved out the door, and its creator was later punished by manning a booth at a show), and Gizmodo (Crappy handheld that ended up exposing the CEO's connection to the mafia) would all make for good "Wha Happuns", IMO.

Here 'cause Georgie Porgie just said crunch in video game making was a good thing and needed a thing to link on Twitter.

My Idea: They could've released the id Tech 2 version on time and then used the profit from that to blow people's minds on Unreal with "Duke Nukem: And EVER."

Hm, Broussard seems like the real life Simpson's comic book guy.

Id love to see a mass effect andromeda wha happun

As someone who has to deal with my own ADHD as well as the ADHD symptoms of my son, Broussard’s actions and statements *scream* “I have ADHD, and I need help.” ADHD folks are insanely creative, but we also have real problems staying on track without being distracted by every new shiny thing on the way to never actually finishing anything.

Somebody leaked the 2001build!!! Unbelieveable!!! You should do a special episode or something.

Speaking of impossibly long development cycles, I wonder if Matt would be able to do an episode on Yandere Simulator

"We would never release a game early" He was not wrong.

I had a coworker who waited from 1996 till the day it was released saying where there was an official launch date and the game was DEFINITELY coming out it was arguably gonna be the greatest day of his life. 3 days after it's release and playing it, he said he wasted his childhood. True story, sorry Ben Sullivan

I worked on this game at 2K as a tester. I was a huge duke fan since 3D, used to play in Lan Tournaments for the game, so its was an honor to work on Forever, especially given its history. I really enjoyed it, I knew it wouldn't do amazing numbers, but I thought old school fans would dig it, and people might give it a chance. I didn't expect it to take the beating it did, it made me sad, but im still happy with the final result!

I wouldn't call this game the worst game ever, it's just the most disappointing. It's much easier for new gamers to digest because they weren't around for the 15 year hype train and countless engine moves because George Broussard couldn't keep his feature creep under control. Playing it nowadays is like playing through all the tropes and cliches of shooters from 98 to the late 2000's. Yahtzee mentioned that in his review of DNF years back but it's worth noting how funky it is to travel through the aesthetics of one era to another. What I would REALLY love to see, would be the 2001 build of DNF finally get a release. Because according to Slipgate's CEO, the game is roughly 70-80% complete and can be played from start to finish. Buuuuut according to everyones favorite porn magician Randy Pitchford, he's looking to monetize it in some way, something akin to an "Ultimate Duke Collection"... :C

I look at Randy Pitchford like Civvie11 does: greasy.

Cyberpunk 2077: 8 Years of Development Hell for Nothing Duke Nukem Forever: 15 Years of Development Hell for Nothing

Infogrames sounds like Steve Brule trying to say Infogames

Here after the the leaked 2001 gameplay of DNF! It is entertaining, sad, and infuriating how neither Broussard nor Miller want to take responsibility for DNF! If either one of them just grew some balls and said “I’m sorry” to those who waited on DNF for so long they might gain back some of the respect they lost to this disaster.

Remember that Duke nukem trailer that was just like logos for like 3 minutes?

I'll be eternally sad about how awfully they mangled Duke. My brother and I spent so many hours playing DN64 together and cherish those memories equally. RIP Duke 😭😭😭

I'm surprised the guy who ordered it in 2001 was still alive

The part at the end with Metacritic had me rolling. Good job, man.

When Halo came up, you missed the chance to say "-first person COMBAT was evolving" for the big pun bucks.

18:10 "except it super doesn't" That phrasing tickles me so much.

And now the famed 2001 version of DNF had been leaked. Its only a matter of time till we get it

Do “Thrill Kill” for the PlayStation one! After it was 99% finished, it was deemed too graphic, then completely salvaged and released as Wu-Tang Shaolin Style! I had even pre-ordered Thrill Kill it was so close to being officially released. I ended up buying Wu-Tang Shaolin Style because I was so excited for Thrill Kill. I love this video series, by the way. It’s how I discovered your channel. I’ve watched all of your What Happened videos and I look forward to more 👍🤓🤩

Honestly they should've focused on finishing the game when they started and then saved any new engines and ideas for potential sequels.

Took me a minute to realize DNF was not a Did Not Finish joke.

No, profit-share does NOT sound good on paper. To quote a great American: "Fuck you. Pay me."

Better change that wholesome twitter comment at the end....

This game's core set of problems can be summarized with the old adage, "feature creep", and people should have heeded the warnings to repeated examples such as today's Star Citizen. Unfortunately, history is always rhymes and will happen again. People need to play the DNF 2013 mod to get an idea how the game should have played.

It was nice for that guy to get a care package.

I am seeing a pattern here with DNF and Daikatana: between the years of 1995 - 2005 or so, if you wanted your PC shooter to be cutting-edge you had to make your own engine. 3D technology was moving so incredibly fast in its early years that whatever the hotness 3D engine was would only be #1 for about 1 - 2 years. That isn't long enough to license the engine, learn the engine and actually develop and ship your game. If you were creating it in-house like Id or Epic were doing, your developers could be learning it and possibly even starting some game development before the engine is even complete (or in the case of Id during Quake and Quake II, your lead developer for the games is literally the guy who wrote the engine and he knows every line of code). Both DNF and Daikatana didn't seem to get this and got stuck in a race that they couldn't win to get a game on shelves with the best engine but were only starting when half of that engine's life was gone.

Well, let's hope we get Duke Nukem Redemption someday.

today marks the 10 anniversary of the colossal catastrophy that was this game. (not) happy birthday to Duke Nukem Forever

I worked at EB games when Duke Nukem Forever came out and it was one of the most busy days I'd ever worked... rival only to the next day when everyone came back to return it

As a millennial who loves old FPSes, I think that this was one of the bigger tragedies of the genre. Forget your Destinys and your No Man's Skies, this is still the top disappointment.

Even though I was aware of Duke Nukem at the time, I only knew of its history from years of X-Play coverage, and at that time, it looked dated and lackluster. When Sessler reviewed it, with his brutal honesty, it was the best thing about it.

“Either we’re stupid and clueless or we believe what we’re working on” probably both

Well at least he grew a pretty sick ponytail in all those years lol

There should be an amendment to the Constitution making Randy being involved in any interactive entertainment medium to be a war crime.

George was definitely focusing way too much on what others do than what his team and him wanted to do in first place. If he stayed inside the bubble without looking out we would probably have 10 different official Duke Nukem games by now, not even exaggerating. Cause DNF has to be the longest game in development of all time at this point right along with Overwatch from Blizzard ( But at least Blizzard did not announce that game until it was literally coming to a conclusion of being developed and only tiny tiny hints being shared by fans around as rumors long before maybe ) But the more people know about a game or any product being almost done and then postponed to another millennia, the less it becomes exciting and when its out, it is bound to fail. But of course it wasn't really completely bad because it would fail as a game, but rather as it simply took way way too long while people already knew what was kind off going on, so each time their adrenalin and excitement would get up and then " OOps i forgot this game even was going to be released " then again " OOoh here goes another bump " then again nothing and then finally release, just really huge stretch of a journey. I do believe that if they never announced DNF being a thing back in 90's and actually SURPRISED people by releasing it as they did - it would possibly have better reception? What do you think?

Now Duke Nukem Forever 2001 is playable for everyone

I'm starting to think the Forever in Duke Nukem Forever isn't a reference to the Batman movie, but the development period

I remember hearing that a joke that went around Take 2 and 3D Realms, was keeping George as out of the loop as possible so he wouldn't completely scrap the game just to change Engines, or add another "take that" to other developers.

considering the oldest millennials are pushing 40, i am pretty sure alot of millennials know what Duke Nukem is. i am one of the Youngest Millenials beinng born in 1993, Duke Nukem 3D is one of my all time favorite FPS games. (Shadow Warrior and Blood for that matter as well, build engine games were dope.)

So when do we get What Happened on MVCI or Bloody Roar 4?

Yo Matt...you should do an update An early build of the game from 2001 (Unreal Engine 1) just leaked online a few days ago

it amazing how brussard would get distracted because clearly he was very capable of committing to beautifying that gigantic mullet.

No Man's Sky? I get that it's playable now but it seems like an interesting story

Talk about the fustercluck that was Mass Effect Andromeda's development

Beyond Good and Evil 2 has surpassed DNF's vaporware record as of 2022.

Just imagine all the people who waited 15 years just for a shit game

I still remember seeing screenshots of the 97/98 build in a gaming magazine in the grocery store, and being so stoked.

A lot of people blame Randy Phitford for DNF but i think that the true villain in this history is James Broussard.

I was a huge supporter of this project when I first heard about it in 1999. The 2001 trailer blew me away. And then NOTHING FOR YEARS. SERIOUSLY. YEARS. No screenshots, no trailers, nothing. The years ticked on. We got two screenshots in 2007, and a teaser trailer that showed nothing in 2008. When the developer was shut down in 09, I remembered not caring, as far as I knew, they had no game. Nothing had been shown. The internet did a collective “meh”. As far as they were concerned the game wasn’t real either. Then the leaks happened, because the creators had been working on the game for years and their work was never shown. All of it looked cool, or at least playable. All that went through my mind was “WHY DIDNT THEY SHOW ANY OF THIS WHILE THEY WERE IN DEVELOPMENT! Then people would’ve actually cared!”

Rerez did a Just Bad Games episode on this game. These two should totally crossover. Matt could do the backstory and Rerez could do the game portion

Would love a video on "Haze", by Free Radical. The developers behind Time Splitters really screwed up with that game, which was a huge shame for all the orphaned Time Splitters fans.

1:55 that pool table interaction just blew my mind, funny to say I've never seen so much detail in a game let alone from that time

“I ain’t afraid of no quake” But apparently afraid of halo. Should’ve stuck with gameplay > graffix

You know, if our pal George had just keept to a single engine, or only Switched idtech for idtech 2, he and his team could have feseably released like 3-4 games in the time it took them to make just the one.

Thank you for these videos Matt, they are so well done. I love this series so much, stories about how and why games ended up the way they did endlessly fascinate me (I read Blood, Sweat, and Pixels several times) and I gotta say this is quickly becoming one of my favorite video series to follow.

I can't believe how many of these you've made so far! They're all fantastic! Loved this one and can't wait for the next one!!

I started to play: Duke Nukem 3D, when I was so young, and now, Duke Nukem Forever, this game gets it forever and ever.