When it comes to retro first-person shooters, there are few as boisterous as Duke Nukem 3D. A rowdy, raunchy adventure that pits a satirical hero versus an army of invading aliens, this 1996 PC classic is anything but family-friendly. Standing as a bastion of ’90s culture, Duke Nukem 3D can be perceived as problematic by today’s standards, but there’s no debating just how absolutely entertaining it is to play. This April, the game celebrates 30 years of cracking jokes, blowing up bad guys, and pushing the envelope, so we thought it’d be fun to take a look back at Duke Nukem 3D and reflect on why it was so fun in the first place.
The Duke Begins His Reign
Although Duke Nukem 3D is by far the most remembered game in the Duke Nukem franchise, it’s far from the first. Before he was wooing the ladies and shooting RPGs in first-person, Duke Nukem was a gruff, side-scrolling hero, making a big splash on MS-DOS. In 1991, Apogee Software, later known as 3D Realms, developed the first title in the series under the working name of Heavy Metal. However, looking for a more comic book style, they later settled on Duke Nukem, named after the protagonist, and the rest was history.
Upon release, Duke Nukem was a sizable success for Apogee, selling upwards of 60,000 copies, and development began on a sequel soon after. Bigger and better than its predecessor, Duke Nukem II took two years to finalize, with new graphics, tighter gameplay, and more enemies. Duke Nukem II was released in 1993, and Apogee planned to make it into a trilogy, but when it came time for Duke Nukem 3, they wanted to try out new technology. With a budget of $300,000 and a team of a dozen developers, they set out on an ambitious project, attempting to provide a realistic, but still larger-than-life version of Duke than had yet to be seen. What they whipped up was something truly special, leaving its mark on the first-person shooter genre forever.
Three Dimensional Nukem
Duke Nukem 3D is an incredible game, with or without the nudity, risque jokes, and toilet humor. As a first-person shooter, it bucked a lot of the trends of its time, offering innovation in gameplay, graphics, and much more. Duke Nukem is an interesting character, but he is truly brought to life by voice actor Jon St. John, who delivers Duke’s lines with gritty machismo and snark, but more playful than self-serious. Mowing down aliens is a fantastic experience, but one made even more entertaining as Duke spouts off one-liners like “Let God sort ’em out” or “Your face, your ass, what’s the difference?”
A funny main character and fun gunplay are not enough to make a great FPS, though, and where Duke Nukem 3D really shines is in its level design. Aiming for realism, Duke Nukem 3D attempts to recreate real-world locations: strip clubs, arcades, movie theaters, etc, all gleefully presented in ’90s pixel art. Unlike DOOM or other dark fantasy FPS, Duke Nukem 3D basks in its playful representation of the real world, encouraging the player to explore every nook and cranny with item pick-ups and secret spots. Levels are designed to be linear, but not too linear, giving the player sneaky ways to bypass certain locked doors and race to the finish. It’s a game that you can play multiple times over and constantly find new stuff, and though not super dense in content outside its main levels and multiplayer, the quality of each stage makes them highly replayable.
Unfortunately, for as great as Duke Nukem 3D was, the franchise fell off in a big way as the ’90s came to a close. A handful of spin-offs were released toward the tail end of the millennium, but these were mostly underwhelming third-person shooters, all of which lacked the unique spark of Duke 3D. Decades later, Duke Nukem Forever put the proverbial nail in the coffin, as it encountered years and years of delays, and when it finally did hit store shelves, it was marked as a complete dud.
So, what’s the future for Duke Nukem? Currently, Take-Two Interactive (the publisher of Grand Theft Auto) owns the rights to Duke, since they were previously held by Gearbox Software before being acquired by Take-Two. Though Duke occasionally pops up as a cameo character in other media, it’s very unlikely we’ll see a traditional FPS sequel in the franchise any time soon. Rumors have been afloat for years about a Duke Nukem movie, but unless extremely tongue-in-cheek and played as a joke, I doubt that will come to fruition either, as Duke’s sense of humor simply doesn’t fit in the 2020s. Still, we can always look back on Duke Nukem 3D as a high point not only for the series, but boomer shooters in general: a game that’s still incredibly fun to play 30 years later.
If you’ve never sat down and played Duke 3D, or it’s been a few decades since you last witnessed the “L.A. Meltdown”, there’s no better time. Duke Nukem 3D is playable on modern platforms through the 20th Anniversary World Tour version (the only notable Duke release during the Gearbox era), available on PC, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation.
