What can the industry learn from Duke Nukem 3D? That’s the question I asked myself as I played through the recently released Duke Nukem: Megaton Edition on Steam. Duke Nukem 3D originally released in 1996 and despite the highly unsuccessful launch of its sequel, stands as one of those games that continues to get ported to new consoles wherever they may be found. So what cues can developers take from Duke?
For starters, let’s look at difficulty. There is no doubt that Duke Nukem is an insanely hard game, especially when you consider that enemies were unpredictable in nature. A pig cop, for instance, might hit you with a shot that takes five HP, or he might hit you with the full force of the shotgun and take away more than half of your health. There is a fine line between dangerous and lethal that your enemies cross fairly regularly. The game even goes as far as taking the shrink ray and handing it over to one of the aliens later on in the game, allowing them to shrink you in one shot and then walk over and squish you in a matter of seconds.
And for that Duke Nukem accomplished a feat in creating enemies that were both easy and devastatingly lethal at the same time. Bosses had attacks that were easy to avoid, but may luck be on your side if they manage to hit you because it will likely kill you instantly, even at full health and armor.
There was also a certain charm in Duke Nukem’s interactivity in levels. Too many times developers try to copy the kind of environmental interaction which started with 3D Realms, and the end result is a collection of boring and poorly programmed mini-games. For Duke, the interaction was mostly shallow but highly enjoyable, like sitting at the door flicking the doorstop and amusing yourself with the twang sound it makes. Shooting stuff off of the counter, turning lights on and off, telephones, playing pool on the pool table, and more. There weren’t any points, they weren’t fully featured mini-games, they were just there.
Now obviously Duke Nukem 3D was released nearly twenty years ago, and the game itself doesn’t serve as a platform for MMO development, but when 3D Realms created the game, they had a lot of great ideas for concepts that should still be used to this day. Nonlinear level design, enemies that could be incredibly dangerous if allowed, an incredibly unforgiving death system (at the highest difficulty), interactivity on a shallow yet fun level, and more.
Today’s developers need to be taken to the University of Duke, where they shall major in Nukemology.
MMO Fallout 