3D Realms Boss Sheds Light on Duke Nukem Forever’s Tortured Development

Scott Miller is psychologically done with Duke Nukem Forever…forever. The founder of 3D Realms, which helped bring classic action games like Max Payne and Wolfenstein 3D to life, says he has never and probably will never play the ill-fated shooter to completion, which released in 2011 after more than a decade in development hell.

When asked when he started to worry about Duke Nukem Forever’s development being in trouble, Miller said it was 2003.

“My argument to

was we need to almost double the size of our studio to get this thing up,” Miller said. “What happens is that a new game will come out that blows the doors off of what we’re doing, like Half-Life or Half-Life 2. Therefore, OK, let’s go back to the drawing board and add more features to the engine. We were just always playing catch-up because our team is too small to ever really get ahead and maintain the lead we want.”

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Watch Ellen Play Fortnite With Ninja

You can tell a game has hit it big when it starts appearing on the talk show circuit. Fortnite has made a handful of appearances outside the traditional gaming media and now hit once again with an extended spot on Ellen. In it, host Ellen DeGeneres explained following a rabbit hole from the Orange Justice dance to Fortnite to the notable streamer, Ninja.

Ninja made an appearance on the show, ostensibly to explain how to play and show Ellen the ins and outs. The result is a lot like fellow talk show host Conan O’Brien’s ongoing Clueless Gamer, with the host cracking jokes at her own expense against the backdrop of playing a game.

Those seeking advice on how to play Fortnite like Ninja will have to look elsewhere, though, as the lesson only touches on the barest essentials of the game. Ellen comedically bumbles her way through very slowly dropping into position, finding and promptly wasting her one firearm, and ultimately getting killed. Not quite enough to get rich streaming.

For actual tips on Fortnite, check out our challenges guide to get the most out of your Battle Pass. This season the Darkness Rises theme brings all sorts of new skins and cosmetics like the Dire Wolf. It also brought a destructive new vehicle and it appears that more Halloween themed cosmetics are on the way.

Gotham Season 5 Has Three Time Jumps And That Is Very Important

The final season of Gotham won’t premiere until 2019; however, with the show’s final appearance at New York Comic-Con happening over the weekend, the Batman prequel series is at the center of a lot of buzz. Whether it’s the news that Shane West will play Bane in the Fox show’s final episodes or that Batman will finally make an appearance in the series finale, there’s plenty to talk about.

One other topic of discussion over the last week is whether the show would jump ahead in time following the events of the Season 4 finale, in which Jeremiah (Cameron Monaghan) blew up the bridges that connect Gotham City to the rest of the world, essentially setting up a story inspired by the “No Man’s Land” story from the DC comic books. During a visit to the show’s set in New York City, GameSpot learned from multiple cast members that there would be a three-month time jump in the new season.

Thanks to a little clarification from executive producer John Stephens, though, it’s not quite that simple. “We have a time jump of 391 days at the top of the premiere opener, but then we settle in back at 87 days,” he said.

That means when the series returns, fans will see Gotham City a little over a year after Jeremiah destroyed the bridges, before settling back into its three-month jump. The season will then, assumedly, tell the story of how Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie), Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz), and whoever else is left get the city to the point it’s at on the 391-day mark.

Those aren’t the only two time jumps at play in the final season, though. Speaking at Gotham‘s NYCC panel, Stephens also dropped another bombshell. The series finale will jump forward again, this time to 10 years in the future. It’s at this point that the audience will meet Bruce as Batman. That said, it remains to be seen whether it’ll be Mazouz in the cape and cowl.

Of course, any longtime fan of Gotham is probably keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that the young actor who was 13 years old when the show launched would end up getting to properly become Batman. To see whether that happens or not, though, you’re going to have to wait for whenever the final season of Gotham premieres. All we know at this point is that it won’t be until sometime early next year.

Shenmue: Cancelled Remake Would Have Completely Revamped Visuals

New reports suggest that Shenmue I & II could have received a much more “comprehensive remake with completely revamped artwork,” if Sega’s plans had been successful.

As reported by Eurogamer, Digital Foundry recently published a video that gives us a look at what the Shenmue I & II remasters could have looked like, had the development on these more ambitious version not been cancelled due to “budget constraints and development delays.”

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Egos and Immersion: Why Rockstar Won’t Hire Famous Actors Anymore

Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says the developer has moved away from using name actors in recent games, citing egos and player immersion.

Speaking to Vulture, Houser explained: “We don’t bring in name actors anymore because of their egos and, most important of all, because we believe we get a better sense of immersion using talented actors whose voices you don’t recognize.”

Houser specifically brings up his experience directing Burt Reynolds in GTA: Vice City, who apparently shouted “get the limey out of here” after an argument. Houser also had to ask another director to take over following disagreements with Public Enemy’s Chuck D while making GTA: San Andreas.

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Special Edition Diablo 3 Nintendo Switch Bundle Announced

Nintendo has announced the Nintendo Switch Diablo III: Eternal Collection Bundle that includes an exclusive Diablo III-themed Nintendo Switch console and dock, carrying case, and a download code for the upcoming title.

Available on November 2, 2018, the Diablo III: Eternal Collection bundle will cost $359.99 USD and comes packaged with standard gray Joy-Cons and the console and dock adorned with Diablo artwork.

In the US, the Nintendo Switch Diablo III Eternal Collection Bundle is only available at Gamestop.

The Diablo III: Eternal Collection on Switch includes the original version of the game, both the Reaper of Souls expansion and Rise of the Necromancer pack, and all content updates.

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Red Dead Redemption 2 Boss Reveals Shocking Stats About The Game

Author Harold Golberg sat down with Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser recently for a chat about Red Dead Redemption 2, and there are a number of notable takeaways.

Starting off, Houser discussed the intense production of the ambitious western, saying in a piece for Vulture that some people on the development team worked 100-hour weeks several times in 2018 to finish the game. This is an alarming figure, though it is not entirely surprising. In 2010, the spouses of Rockstar San Diego employees wrote an impassioned blog post in which they criticised Rockstar’s management for overworking employees on Red Dead Redemption 1. Rockstar responded to the post by saying it was “saddened if any former members of any studio did not find their time here enjoyable or creatively fulfilling and wish them well with finding an environment more suitable to their temperaments and needs.”

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Going back to the Vulture piece, Houser said, “We were working 100-hour weeks” for several periods of time in 2018. Oftentimes at the end of a project, developers will “crunch” to finish a game, and it appears that was also the case with Red Dead Redemption 2.

Red Dead Redemption 2 appears to be a massive undertaking. The Vulture report says the final game has 300,000 animations and 500,000 lines of dialogue. It is estimated by the author, presumably based on information from Houser or other Rockstar representatives, to be a 65-hour game, and it could have been longer. The report said Rockstar cut five hours from the game, one part of which was scaling back a love interest for main character Arthur Morgan. Apparently, the writers intended for Morgan to have two love interests, but Houser explained that “one of them didn’t work,” and as such, this story element was removed. Additionally, some missions got axed because “they were never going to work technically or be quite slick enough, or they felt superfluous.”

One mission that got removed had Morgan on a train trying to take down bounty hunters. “It was fun at first, but then it wasn’t,” Houser explained. “This part of the process is always about compromise and horse trading. Everyone always loses bits of the game they love.”

Regarding Red Dead Redemption 2 being a 65-hour game, this is only one estimation for its length. Everyone plays games differently, so your mileage may vary. And then of course, Red Dead Redemption 2 has an online mode that seemingly offer plentiful opportunities to keep playing after the story credits roll.

As Houser said, game development is a fluid process, and things change all the time. What’s rare is for developers to talk about this, and even more rare for one of the higher-ups at a secretive studio like Rockstar to be talking about it.

The Vulture story goes on to claim that Red Dead Redemption 2’s final script for the main story alone was 2,000 pages. Rockstar reportedly paid 1,200 actors to do motion-capture work on Red Dead Redemption 2, 700 of whom also recorded dialogue. What’s more, they were all represented by the acting union SAG-AFTRA, which asked its members to stop working last year amid a strike that was eventually resolved. It’s not immediately clear if Rockstar had to pause production on Red Dead Redemption 2’s voice and mo-cap work as a result of the strike. “We’re the biggest employers of actors in terms of numbers of anyone in New York, by miles,” Houser said.

Also in the interview, Houser said Rockstar might make Red Dead Redemption 3, but he isn’t committing to it yet. Rockstar will only do it “if [Red Dead Redemption 2] does well enough and we think we have other interesting things to say.”

Red Dead Redemption 2 launches on October 26 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The multiplayer mode, Red Dead Online, is set to debut in November, and Houser said Rockstar intends for it to be “as robust as Grand Theft Auto Online.”

You can read the full Vulture story here.

All The PS4 Games Sony Is Bringing To PAX Aus Revealed

PlayStation is coming to PAX Aus this month, and now Sony has announced more of its plans for the show, including a list of playable games on the show floor.

Sony’s booth at PAX Aus will contain 40 stations, and among the playable games are upcoming high-profile games like Capcom’s new Resident Evil 2, Bloodorne studio FromSoftware’s new Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and the game-making game Dreams from LittleBigPlanet studio Media Molecule. Also playable on the show floor will be Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, as well as the previously released PS4 exclusive Spider-Man.

There will also be PlayLink titles available in Sony’s booth, including Knowledge Is Power Decades and Chimparty. Additionally, a number of PlayStation VR games will be available, including Blood and Truth, Ace Combat 7, and Beat Saber.

“The global Penny Arcade community is very important to PlayStation and our development community. The fact that we are now entering our fourth year of partnership with PAX Aus with the biggest booth and the most playable opportunities we’ve ever had, is something the team is very excited to bring to our Aussie players,” SIE Australia marketing director Patrick Lagana said in a statement. We will ignite play within everyone visiting our booth, giving players the opportunity to get hands & heads on with some of the best & exclusive games for PS4 and PlayStation VR.”

PAX Aus kicks off on October 26 with a keynote address by Rhianna Pratchett, who worked on the Tomb Raider reboot and its sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider. She also wrote Mirror’s Edge, Heavenly Sword, and the Overlord series. During her PAX Aus keynote, she’ll be engaging directly with fans, answering questions about any number of topics.

GameSpot’s theatre, the GameSpot Dropbear Theatre, will have programming running Friday through Sunday. We’ll be hosting panels on Fortnite’s coverage in the mainstream media, voice acting featuring actors from Telltale’s The Walking Dead and Fallout 4, and hacking a video game, among other topics. You can see the full programming lineup for the GameSpot Dropbear Theatre here, while a full list of every PAX Aus panel can be seen here.

In addition to the panels, PAX Aus will include a show floor featuring juggernauts like Xbox, PlayStation, Ubisoft, Nintendo, and Bandai Namco. A list of playable games hasn’t been announced yet, however. Also new for this year is that PAX Aus and another big-time Australian gaming show, the EB Expo, are joining forces.

PAX Aus three-day tickets are sold out, but you can still buy single-day tickets for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday here on the event’s website.