A user on shacknews.com (by the sn of "cubeblue") sheds light on this. His brother worked at 3D realms (until now obviously) and this is what he said:
First, someone said this:
By: goddamnregistration
Reality Check: Had they not gone under, this still would never have been completed... what you're looking at their is a disjointed collection of pre-alpha demos. Had they even today said lets get this done, put a story / ui etc to it and ship it, it would takes a few years to get to that stage... however being the idiots they are they would have seen a new pretty engine they liked more and abandoned it for that.
Do NOT! look at that video and comment like it was a few months from release, it was never going to happen.
"cubeblue's" reply
I can confirm that there was far more completed than what this video implies.
The guy obviously stripped away details in some of the video to highlight the motion and animations.
I've played a good bit of the game, my bro worked there. That scene with the big alien in the football field? That's the first level, it's Duke playing an arcade version of Duke 3D inside his huge Duke mansion. This was last summer and I saw four different levels and environments that were fully playable (some just needed some polish).
They basically started making the game again from scratch (as they've done a few times) about a year and a half ago.
They had a hard cut-off date for development (11/2009) and a ship date (4/2010). They were stupid close to actually finishing this thing.
Was it going to be worth 12 years wait? Of course not. But it looked like a solid offering from a studio that had spent 2.5 years working on a title.
a reply
chilln This person is cool!
If you arent full of shit... I find it hard to believe they could have been 6 months away from completing most of the game, and then just curtail into this massive crash.
Cubeblue
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So did they, apparently.
The story I got from my brother was long and drawn out, but my understanding is that basically they were running low on capital and fully expected to get an injection from the publisher. Because of an old fight with the publisher (3DR apparently audited them on Max Payne earnings and found they were holding back, so the relationship was already hurt after that) there was some personal aspect to why they chose not to invest.
Plus, I'm sure the general outlook of the economy didn't help and then, to be fair, what credibility did 3DR have left after promising for years? As the other fellow said, even if it looked like they were so close, how could anyone be sure someone wouldn't make a dumb move and decide start over again or whatever.
I don't know all of the details, but I know the 3DR folks were just as shocked that they came this close only to have the rug pulled out. I heard they even shopped this to Valve, id, and other studios begging out of respect for the IP for loans to keep this thing going just long enough to tie it up. But of course everyone else has their money tied up into their own current projects. The money for this sort of thing has been drying up and people aren't willing to toss it to someone with such a poor track record, even if they see the game is nearly done. It's just too risky.
I bet you guys are thinking he's just bullshitting and that he has no friends or relatives at 3DR but the guy has been the one submitting the info. that shacknews has been getting about this game, etc. - and even if he had no brother or w/e - all the stuff he said still makes perfect sense.
Also, if your company just went under you're gonna publish your work or something so that other companies can find you and hire you. That's basically a publicized resume.
