It would have been, indeed, a great success, but despite the aforementioned conversations, the project never materialized… in the official studios. This would almost certainly be a success.» And the news ended with a reflection from my colleague Isidro that is now more relevant than ever: « It wouldn’t be bad if 3D Realms and Gearbox reached an agreement (they have already started negotiating) to finish off the title and launch it as vintage tribute. In 2018 we found out that, to even greater frustration, Duke Nukem Forever 2001 was already 90% complete, but that the decision to change the graphics engine (from Unreal Engine to Unreal Engine 2) meant that all that work ended up in the bucket of the trash.

And out of rebound, the concept of Duke Nukem Forever 2001 was born, that is, the unpublished version of the game, shown that year. Thus, after the 14 years of waiting, came a wave of frustration that still accompanies the game. However, the game that ended up reaching users no less than 10 years later, in June 2011, looked little or nothing like what the trailer published 10 years earlier promised. It seemed like the wait was going to be worth it. The 2001 trailer, four years after the game’s announcement, marked a before and after in the wait for that Duke Nukem Forever. Initially announced in 1997, and first shown in a trailer back in 2001, delays, cancellations, and changes kept piling up, thus frustrating the many users who were eagerly awaiting the successor to Duke Nukem 3D, a title that was groundbreaking at the time, by combining the game style of other shooters that also saw the light of day that season, with a more humorous and provocative tone. There are few game projects that have been delayed as long as Duke Nukem Forever was.

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