It seems that the hard-hitting nature of Duke Nukem is still too hard to ignore, even though Duke Nukem Forever came out in 2001. Modders Gambini and Mikko Sandt have released their version of the game with a 2013 mod as a tribute to the original title.
Duke Nukem Forever 2013 was first revealed on April Fool's Day via a debut trailer on a DN3D modding site. The mod was initially meant to hit the Internet on April 15, but was delayed for several days.
Gambini, one of the creators, shed some light on the situation. He writes:
“First of all: There hasn´t been ever a fixed release date. When I created this mod´s profile I´ve been asked for a release date. I had to choose between TBD or an exact day. TBD sounds like in about ten years, so I decided to choose a safe date, which was April 15. Days came flying and that day was above us before we even blinked.”
He added that later, when the trailer started generating traction on line, Gambini decided to divert his attention from working on the mod to reading the immense amount of messages both the creators were receiving from everywhere, as well as dealing with other serious issues, and that “if we would have known beforehand that the trailer would cause such things, we would have decided to not show it.” Clearly he does not follow Don't Read The Comments on Twitter.
“I changed the release date a few times with the intention of calming people down, but it generated the opposite results. The true is that, at the point of publishing the trailer, we had a 95% done mod. And at the moment of writting these news, the mod is about 99.99 percent done. There´s only one little thing missing and some real life problems prevented us to have it done today,” Gambini concludes.
The modders also advise that whoever downloads the mod will need to install it in an empty folder:
“Put a duke3d.grp copy inside and run DNF.BAT. Software mode is recommended but Polymost is also supported. Do not replace the Eduke32.exe provided.”
According to Gambini and Mikko, Duke Nukem Forever 2013 is the Duke game "that was meant to be."
Check out the trailer below:
