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id, the celebrated developer of legendary first-person shooters Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, thought that the recent demise of infamous FPS Duke Nukem Forever was “a joke”.
On May 18 3D Realms confirmed development of Duke Nukem Forever had been halted and the DNF team had been let go “due to lack of funding”. The move proved a sad end for one of the longest-running sagas in video game history. The FPS was first revealed in 1997.
id Software has close ties to 3D Realms. 3D Realms published a number of early id games when it was known as Apogee Software, including Wolfenstein 3D.
Speaking to VideoGamer.com, id Software’s director of business development Steve Nix expressed his sadness and surprise at the news.
He said: “For me it was personally sad. I know a lot of people at the studio (id) were really surprised and saddened for sure. We had originally moved to Dallas because Apogee, who morphed into 3D Realms, was our original publisher. So id might not even be in Dallas and a lot of us wouldn’t even be working in the games industry if it wasn’t for Apogee and 3D Realms.
“So I know for me personally I thought it was a joke when I heard the other day. So definitely, extremely saddened and surprising that those guys aren’t there and we may never see the game we were all looking forward to.”
When asked if there might be some room at id for some of the now ex-DNF development team, Nix offered a glimmer of hope.
“Well, there are some pretty talented people over there, we’re still hiring so, we’ll see,” he said. “There are some really talented guys in there so it very well could happen that some of them end up at id.”
The future of Duke Nukem Forever remains uncertain. 3D Realms is currently embroiled in a lawsuit filed by ex-publisher Take-Two that accuses the company of breach of contract.
