Duke Nukem ‘is still 3D Realms’ game’

In taking what some see as the brave decision to help the long overdue Duke Nukem Forever come to market, Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford has stated that he feels committed to realise the vision that 3D Realms was unable itself to complete.

When asked by Eurogamer if Duke Nukem Forever mirrors his own vision for the title, Pitchford responded: "No, it’s not my game. My commitment is to make sure that I and you and we all finally get to play the game we’ve been waiting for all this time. So the commitment that I’ve made with my studio is to make sure 3D Realms’ vision is realised.

"I was at 3D Realms at the very beginning of the project, so the influence that persisted from that point forward is very high level – the top-line story of how Duke is enjoying the rewards of his successes, and some time has passed since he saved the world, and it’s this world that the aliens come back into, and he once again has to rise and be the one."

Later in the interview, Pitchford seemingly becomes quite irritated when Eurogamer suggests that the title’s visuals reflect the game’s long development cycle.

"That’s incorrect. That’s actually incorrect," Pitchford interjects. "The game pushes the system to its absolute maximum. The thing we’re struggling with now is actually performance and memory constraints.

"If you play a game that doesn’t have anything and it’s just a shell focused on the scene, yeah you can get higher fidelity, but when you want to put in more simulation, more things to do in the environment, you have to trade off those resources somewhat.

"If this exact game had come out earlier in the cycle, when everyone else hadn’t picked their angles and maximised the hardware, there’d be nothing that looked as good. The game absolutely looks better than the first generation Xbox 360 and PS3 games. In this world, today, there are games that look worse than it and there’s games that look better than it."