"Maybe the one thing you can't say about Duke Nukem Forever is that it's been canceled," I wrote in the first edition of this short history of the game. Well, that's still true--to a point.

3D Realms may now exist only in name, but there has been no word on the final fate of Duke Nukem Forever. And why should there be? A fitting end would see the death of DNF drawn out for years.

Whether the game will eventually see the light of day or not, it's time now to pause once again and look back through history, all the way to 1996 and up to the present, in our updated account of the infamous game's development.

The History of Duke Nukem Forever

January 29, 1996: Duke Nukem 3D is released on PC. Mac, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn ports follow later in the year.

Mid-1996: Work on Duke Nukem Forever begins. The game, envisioned as a 2D/3D side-scrolling title in the vein of Donkey Kong Country, is soon abandoned when developer Keith Schuler shifts his focus to the Duke Nukem 3D Plutonium Pak.

January 1997: Early prototyping begins on the next true Duke game. The FPS sequel to Duke Nukem 3D is tentatively referred to as Duke Nukem 4.

March 1997: Daikatana development begins.

April 27, 1997: The fourth major game in the Duke series is announced by 3D Realms. Officially dubbed Duke Nukem Forever, the name is poached from the canceled side-scroller. id Software's Quake II engine is licensed for development. GT Interactive is set to publish.

August 1997: The first DNF screenshots are printed in PC Gamer, with other sites picking them up eventually.

November 1997: 3D Realms/Apogee founder Scott Miller states that Doctor Proton, Duke's nemesis from the original side-scroller, will return in DNF.

May 1998: The first trailer is unveiled at E3, depicting several scenes with a new pre-Alyx female sidekick, dubbed Bombshell. Wailing guitar, the infamous axe-wielding miner, and a variety of gameplay scenarios are also featured.

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June 1, 1998: Team Fortress 2 development begins.

June 15, 1998: A few days following the Duke Nukem Forever trailer debut, 3D Realms drops the Quake II engine and licenses then-Epic MegaGames' Unreal engine. "We don't feel there will be a significant development delay," says Duke co-creator George Broussard.

August, 1998: "At this point, we are really in full production mode again on the game," reports Broussard in a .plan file. "We expect to have gun and guys walking around any day like we never switched engines." The team aims for a 1999 release.

September, 1998: Scott Miller claims that DNF will "set a new standard" for first person interactivity.

October 12, 1998: Duke Nukem: Time to Kill is released on PlayStation.

September 1, 1999: Duke Nukem: Zero Hour is released on Nintendo 64. Broussard is quoted as saying DNF will probably not feature a software renderer. (News)

October 22, 1999: Scott Miller tells 3D Unlimited that the game is now making use of improvements made to the Unreal engine developed for Unreal Tournament.

October 24, 1999: Miller calls on the Duke community to generate suitable names for the inevitable DNF sequel. (News)

November 1, 1999: New DNF screenshots surface, showing off the Unreal engine-powered graphics. Future Gears mastermind Cliffy B is quoted: "Those shots rock my nuts."

November 20, 1999: Broussard to Dukeworld on recent production delays due to engine updates: "We broke off our code at Unreal 220. But unfortunately that was a fairly unstable version of the engine. We had intended to continue on our own, but Epic simply did too good a job with UT. ...Not patching to it would be a colossal mistake."

Turn the page for more, including an epic DNF trailer from 2001.