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.
