It featured destructible environments (albeit selectively), setting it apart from its competition at the time.
It was one of the first FPS games to feature Y-axis aiming, although it did not innovate this addition as games like Descent and Star Wars: Dark Forces used it first it certainly helped popularise it. While it didn’t innovate the genre in many ways, the way Doom or Descent would do, coming at the tail end of the 2D sprites-based FPS era before games like Quake would introduce true 3D graphics, it did separate itself from the games of its ilk in some key ways. The series became synonymous as a joke after the frequently delayed, disastrously released Duke Nukem Forever, the death knell for a character and franchise that already struggled to be taken seriously.īut is this reputation actually deserved? Should Duke Nukem 3D be tarred with the same unseemly brush as its descendants? I am going to take a fresh look at Duke Nukem 3D, 25 years later.ĭuke Nukem started life as a series of side-scrolling shooters, met with modest fame, before making a jump into the “3D” world of first-person shooters to capitalise on the genre’s rising popularity following in the wake of Doom and Doom 2. That was the first thing that came to mind when I saw Duke Nukem 3D was hitting this landmark anniversary today.
Duke Nukem 3D is now officially old enough that it would not be impressed by Duke Nukem 3D.
