Duke Nukem Forever is using Unreal Engine 2.5?

[vrbtny]

So I was browsing around the interwebz for intel on Duke Nukem Forever, getting all pumped for the release here in the UK(Ha! We get it here tomoz) as is my tradition, and I stumbled upon a fact which caught me by surprise.

Duke Nukem Forever is running on the Unreal 2.5 engine. Yes, you heard me. 2.5. The one introduced back in 2002 for America's army.

Seriously? Have I missed something here? Is it because of all the development hell it has gone through, they didn't want to do Yet Another engine change. But.... I mean, c'mon, even the first Rainbow Six : Vegas used 3.0, and that was in 2006! That's five years ago.

I mean, yeah, it would explain a lot about the demo. I saw one Escapist call the game "As ugly as sin," but still, didn't we move to the Unreal Engine 3.0 back in 2006 with Gears of War?

It's claimed that the version used in Duke Nukem Forever is a "Heavily Modified" version, with rendering completely re-written, and every-other aspect improved upon.... uh, question? Why didn't they just go straight to the Unreal 3 engine and save themselves a hell of a lot of work?

 

[CrashBang]

I... really? Naaah, I don't believe you, that's ridiculous

To Google!

 

[Woodsey]

Why is that surprising? I had a poo this morning that was more visually pleasing.

 

[vrbtny]

I... really? Naaah, I don't believe you, that's ridiculous

To Google!

Go on Wikipedia and look at list of games using the Unreal Engine. Duke Nukem is under the 2.5 section.... but then again it is Wikipedia....

 

[mitchell271]

i'm pretty sure this isn't true. and if it is, they really bled every bit of the engine to make DNF to look the way it does.

and if it's the Unreal 2.5 engine (which means it received one really big update) does that mean we're currently using the Source 1.8 engine?

 

[mjc0961]

I still don't see what the big deal with the graphics is. Aside from that monster truck, everything looked fine to me.

 

[Keava]

From the Gearbox FAQ:

Q: What engine is Duke Nukem Forever running off of?
A: Duke Nukem Forever is being developed off an engine that is built to meet the gameplay needs of a Duke Nukem title. All of the major systems such as rendering and animation are custom built. Our developers are focused on making the best game possible, not promoting an engine.

So yeah. 3DRealms started it off with Quake engine, then first Unreal then switched to Unreal 2 engine and then decided to rebuild it from scratch, leaving just networking and UnrealScript from the base. All the important bits like shader support, lightning, rendering and animations are custom built and not tied to Unreal Engine.

 

[vrbtny]

From the Gearbox FAQ:

Q: What engine is Duke Nukem Forever running off of?
A: Duke Nukem Forever is being developed off an engine that is built to meet the gameplay needs of a Duke Nukem title. All of the major systems such as rendering and animation are custom built. Our developers are focused on making the best game possible, not promoting an engine.

So yeah. 3DRealms started it off with Quake engine, then first Unreal then switched to Unreal 2 engine and then decided to rebuild it from scratch, leaving just networking and UnrealScript from the base. All the important bits like shader support, lightning, rendering and animations are custom built and not tied to Unreal Engine.

So it's only Unreal 2.5 in name? Everything else has been stripped and replaced? Is that really work-efficient? Can't they just skip to 3.0 and not have to do it.

 

[Adzma]

This is hardly news... I've known they were using Unreal 2 for years now. While it may be dated it's good they finally got to a point and said "NO MORE ENGINE CHANGES"

Also high-five for DNF release tomorrow! Take that United States! It's your turn to wait!

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

So instead they heavily modified the engine beyond recognition instead, because THAT is what you need to do when your game is a decade late and your budget is running out fast!

 

[vrbtny]

This is hardly news... I've known they were using Unreal 2 for years now. While it may be dated it's good they finally got to a point and said "NO MORE ENGINE CHANGES"

Also high-five for DNF release tomorrow! Take that United States! It's your turn to wait!

For once in my gaming life I am glad I'm english. We've had to wait 13 years for this game, but we get it 5 days earlier than the US. For once!

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

All of the Call of Duty games run on a modified version of the Quake engine from 1996.

All of Valve's Games run on the Source engine, from 2004.

Just because it's an old engine doesn't mean anything. A lot of developers use an old engine, and just make modifications to it for each new game.