May 6, 2009

3D Realms Closes its Doors
By: Steven Hopper

The publisher was 22.

As reported earlier today by Shacknews, acclaimed publisher and developer 3D Realms has closed its doors, laying off its entire staff and shutting down production on development, which included its work on the long-in-development Duke Nukem Forever.

Founded as Apogee in 1987 by Scott Miller and later co-owned by Matt Broussard, the company developed their own titles while publishing works by other high-profile developers, like id Software on the release of the Commander Keen series and Wolfenstein 3D, and formed the 3D Realms label in 1994 with the release of Terminal Velocity, before officially changing its name to 3D Realms in 1996. The newly-named company shot to fame with the release of Duke Nukem 3D, an extremely popular PC game developed in-house that reinvigorated interest in the Duke Nukem character.

3D Realms' closure puts Duke Nukem Forever's fate very much up in the air.

The company had achieved some recent notoriety in the past decade for its infamously long-in-development title Duke Nukem Forever. A reboot of the popular character and proper sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem Forever was supposed to reinvigorate the character and add cutting edge graphics. However, the oft-maligned title was plagued by many delays (it was first announced 13 years ago) and media blackouts, with very little information trickling out about the title for several years at a time. However, recently there had been more info about the game coming out, including screenshots. It now seems that the title will not see the light of day. Unless another developer picks up the reins of the title, DNF could now stand for Did Not Finish.

While the fate of Duke Nukem Forever appears to be fairly grim, a representative on behalf of Deep Silver and the newly resurrected Apogee Software have announced that the development of Duke Nukem Trilogy, an upcoming handheld series starring Duke for the PSP and Nintendo DS, will continue as planned.

3D Realms had its recent foibles stemming from the Duke Nukem Forever controversy, but it should be noted that the company was quite prolific, publishing the first two Max Payne games, Prey for PC and Xbox 360 (another title that languished in development hell for over a decade before finally releasing). Say what you will about Duke Nukem Forever, but 3D Realms influence on gaming and contributions to the industry will be felt for a long time to come.

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