It’s not a bad idea: 2001’s Duke could have a place in the 2022 gaming market if we were looking for a retro (style) shooter.

The DNF2001 Restoration Project on ModDB has taken on a big task: Their goal is to complete the leaked (and aforementioned) 2001 build of Duke Nukem Forever to fill in the gaps, expand the story and direction, and make the blonde macho man’s game, which went through long development hell, undergone many engine and developer changes over a decade and a half, and received below-average reviews in 2011, playable from start to finish with minimal extra work.

A teaser trailer video of what’s been completed so far has been released, and even Lee Jackson has joined the party. He previously composed Duke’s iconic theme song for 3D Realms, Grabbag, and has now provided the previously unused trailer music for Duke Nukem Forever. Even he tweeted “oh, what could have been” from it. And what we wrote in the first paragraph, Gloomwood creator Dillon Rogers agrees.

We shouldn’t expect the DNF2001 Restoration Project to be finished anytime soon, though, as an unfinished demo has been leaked. According to the team, the main focus so far has been on rebuilding the first chapter, and we can already see the visual changes that have been made to the Las Vegas chapter so far. Fine-tuning of the engine and renderer is also planned so that Duke’s unofficial story in this form can run on modern hardware without any problems.

A new story is also in the works to fill in the gaps between what we know about the game and what we don’t, but the goal is to keep the project accurate to Duke Nukem pre-2003. It was also the case with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 Sith Lords Restored Content Mod and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines Plus Patch, which required a minor re-think by the modders to add unused content.

Source: PCGamer