3D Realms has said that Duke Nukem Forever will be completed before 2009. 3D Realms President, Scott Miller, was quoted saying “We can’t make an official announcement. Frankly, we may miss our mark by a month or two, but I feel very confident that we’re on target this time.”

It is currently unknown which gaming platforms will receive DNF, but Miller stated in a recent e-mail, with the Dallas Business Journal about DNF, that “..hitting the big three makes the most sence (Pc,PS3,360).”

DNF was originally announced 1year after the release of Duke Nukem 3D in the spring of 1997 and initially was to be released on the Quake 2 engine. A release date of 1998 was given and gamers around the world read about it in PC gamer. 3D Realms has run into a few problems along the way, the largest being they did not receive the Q2 engine until November 1997.

3D Realms announced the change from the Q2 engine to the Unreal engine in 1998 and this started, what seemed to be, the death of Duke Nukem. From 1998 to 2001, 3D Realms continued to state DNF was still under development even releasing screen shots and game footage. At some point however, 3D Realms website announcement that DNF will be done when its done and stopped further public discussion about development.

It seems the recent comments will bring an end to the 12 year wait, but we wont know for sure until the end of this year.

Miller has commented that there is a Xbox Live Arcade release coming soon to the Microsoft 360. DN3D will be available as a digital download sporting a new on-line multiplayer, co-op mode and Xbox Live achievements. “We’re really excited about bringing classic Duke to the 360″ said Miller during an interview.

3D Realms Co-Founder George Broussard has issued a statement, on the 3D Realms forum, rejecting Millers comments explaining that the release date is still “When it’s done”

George Broussard says:

In what appears to be an unfortunate turn of events, there seems to have been some confusion between what was ‘off the record’ and what was not. I suppose we’re used to dealing with gaming press and not mainstream press. Lesson learned.

While we have internal targets, dates and goals, like every developer, we are not ready to share them. What’s amazing about this is that the DBJ must have assumed that we’d actually announce a date to them, and not gaming press, and that even in the light of Scott’s quote of “We can’t make an official announcement.”, the DBJ effectively did that. Lesson learned.

The release date is still ‘when it’s done’, and will be until the appropriate moment. Platforms have not been finalized or announced. You can rest assured that we are moving toward a goal and that the recently released teaser trailer is the start of that process and seeing more of the game, sooner than later.

We apologize to gamers and websites everywhere for this series of events. Sometimes, you can be too trusting of people and assume things that come back to bite you. Lesson learned.

Letter Source: Kotaku

So if 3D Realms keeps its word on this download for the 360 it might just be the start of the DNF release hype. Lets keep our fingers crossed that Millers statements stand and the DNF team will have a release sometime this year.

Gucomics.com has it’s own take as to the games release.  >>here<<

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