February 2023 Development Update news - Duke Nukem Forever: Restoration Project mod for Duke Nukem Forever 2001

The development team at Mighty Foot Productions has been busy since the First Slice release in December! To start we have had amazing new talented people join the team: animators, programmers, artists and more! We are so thankful for all the hard work everyone continues to put into this project. Also many thanks and appreciation to the various Duke communities around the world! Your feedback, coverage, discussion, play testing, and support is invaluable. We cannot express enough how we appreciate the tens of thousands of people who have played the First Slice and today we are here to show you what we have been up to since!

Our team has grown to such a large and productive size that we have the opportunity to bring the 2001 build to life along with all the little bits and pieces of concept art, screenshots, interviews and everything that helps us fill in the gaps! It takes a bit of detective work like reading comments put into the code, weird names for things in DukeEd, trigger names and more. In the end, talking to many developers who worked on the project, some don’t even remember like Paul Richards who was making more art than 3D Realms could handle. We want to help bring these amazing ideas to life; seeds that 3DR had laid but for one reason or another were not able to make reality.

We want to take you through this process to show you. The team is hard at work on polishing off Chapter 1 based on the First Slice feedback which will resonate through the development process going forward. One of our main focuses right now is a level at the end of Chapter 2 where Duke enters a boxing ring and a battle ensues.

The main thing we are focusing on here will be an extremely large Pig Cop model that appears, but currently with no AI or action. Looking in DukeEd it seems this was being used to scale the boss they wanted to place here. So we know that there is to be a boss here and its relative scale. Looking through Paul Richards’ art and a 3D Realms Christmas card at this time we see this art.

Seeing the location being a very similar boxing arena and Duke holding the chainsaw from the 2001 build, it makes sense this may have been their intent for the boss. No other detective work leads down any other path. And why should it when the evidence is this strong?

As stated, we want to bring to life all these amazing seeds of creativity 3DR planted but never got to see sprout. It allows us to encompass the entirety of 3DR’s dedication and work they did so many years ago. There is no reason to let those seeds of creativity go unused.

What do you think? Our newest member of the team zayJax is an amazing animator and has been working on bringing this legendary Duke foe to life. Look at his work above, trying to get the scale right based on the leak and using the art for the look.

I hope this gives you a nice look at the creativity process when we are developing “new” ideas. These are not something actually “new”, but rather something 3D Realms seemingly had plans for. These ideas are seeds that we are helping to sprout. We have been brainstorming a new name for the project to better show the expanded scope we have for this project and how we want to ensure all those amazing creative seeds are brought to life. We want to be able to give this iteration of Duke Nukem Forever a good subtitle as this is a different product than what was released in 2011. Finding a name that better encompasses the archival and celebration of Duke Nukem Forever media the project has grown into while also rebuilding DNF. While Restoration is still the mentality we are moving forward with, we want to be able to have something that sounds more like an actual game title.

Here is another example of amazing concept art from 3DR of what seems to be a humanoid variation of the snatcher. Is this a fully grown snatcher? Given their similarity to the ant-like enemies in the older builds of Duke Nukem Forever, it all fell into place to bring this evolution of the snatcher infestation to life.

As you also see above, we have also started to brainstorm what the advanced stages of human infection of the snatchers might look like. In doing this we took inspiration from the Ant-like enemies in the very first iterations of Duke Nukem Forever. The snatchers have a very similar aesthetic and this combination combines 2001 and previous builds.

Since we are focusing on new models, here is also the work in progress for the new Captain Cole model who will have a larger role in the game. He will be our first test for Bombshell's AI and how that gameplay loop will work. The 2001 build doesn't have much in the way of AI that would work for this type of companion and we have made large strides in having scenarios like EDF soldiers working with Duke to fight snatched but then turning themselves too. This will create an amazing gameplay mechanic that will reinforce to the player the wise and timeless words of General Graves from the 2001 trailer "...you can't trust anyone..."

Also for one last update on models, we have created gibs for the Sharks found in the game!

You read that right! We have brought back, to the best of our ability, the Duke Ed website from so long ago! Feel free to check it out! We are hoping to create a website for the project itself in the future, so we are dipping our toes in the water for now with this!

So what about a patch? Well we have a very good update in the works and it has become an important update that we are going to take a bit more time to polish it off. However we do want to take some more time to really flesh out the multiplayer additions to create a stable and focal build for Duke fans to play 2001 multiplayer modes with constant support and updates. This extra time allows us to finish off the optional installer for our latest builds. If you play multiplayer regularly or want to, the installer is the best way to ensure you are always on the latest version. Of course all files will still be posted to ModDB for those who choose to do it manually. The choice is yours!

As you can see in the cover image for this update at the start of this article, we have created an amazing roster of Dukes to choose from when playing online. This will help make matches more exciting and visually exciting. Along with helping you express your inner Duke and FPS fan! I am sure you can easily spot many homages and Easter eggs to the legends of the FPS genre and there will be even more to come! If all are ready, we should have 56 unique Dukes for you to choose from! The current model to show off the skins is based on the first Duke model we created with the updated model to be revealed soon!

The update also includes major performance improvements for all rendering modes, our tests show a 20-30% performance increase in high stress areas.

We will have a date for the first patch in the coming weeks! Our goal is for it to be released by the end of March 2023!

Not all updates are listed in the patch notes, we have to keep some surprises! We will be continuing to update you via our Twitter and our community discord as well! Please follow and join if you haven’t yet! We are always looking for playtesters and that is normally where we find our best folks! Some have even moved onto the development team proper. A big thanks to all our playtesters as well!

DOPEFISH LIVES!!! - https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmsUyAdf23g

We continue to work on all aspects of the game, from AI to developing new areas of the game to be full of exciting moments and places to explore. Chapter 4 is a very exciting chapter the team has been working on which takes place in the rural areas of Vegas and takes on an imsim-lite (think Deus Ex, Dishonored) gameplay feel. We want to expand on this and have added some other seedy places around rural Vegas that have either been abandoned or are a far cry from their big city counterparts.

We also have new quality of life improvements and features coming to Duke Ed, check out one of the new splash screens and theme you will be able to choose from below!

Oh...and did you find the 3D Realms Dopefish from the 1999 Asset CD that we fully skinned and cleaned up? If not, FIND IT! Hidden in the article somewhere...