Duke Nukem Forever is destined to become the fourth official game of the Duke Nukem saga. The gaming world was introduced to the Alien Ass Kicker through Duke Nukem the game. That game and Duke Nukem 2 were sidescrolling - platform games. The game that made history however, was the third installment, Duke Nukem 3D, which was a First Person Shooter. Duke Nukem 3D together with Quake and Doom make up the holy trinity of FPS games, responsible for the extreme popularity of the genre.

These three Duke titles are the only official games, even though some console titles did surface after the success of Duke Nukem 3D.

Duke Nukem 3D was released in early Jan. 1996 (shareware only, with the full game releases in May). Duke's signature phrase, "Come get some," was exactly what game players did, propelling Duke to the number one seller status for several months in a row, and number two for 1996, behind Warcraft.

Duke Nukem 3D not only sold well, it was praised by press and players alike for setting new standards in interactivity, level design (realistic environments), cool weapons, innovative inventory items, game humor, level editor (the first to be including with a first-person shooter), multiplayer "DukeMatch" fun, and most of all for the attitude-busting, non-PC character of Duke himself, including his direct-to-the-point comments heard throughout the game. Duke Nukem became an overnight star.

 The Build engine, upon which Duke Nukem 3D was constructed, went on to become the most successful engine in terms of number of games released, a record still maintained at the date of this writing (May, 1999), with 12 published games. Notable games developed using the Build engine include Witchaven, TekWar, Shadow Warrior, Blood, PowerSlave and Redneck Rampage.

The Duke Nukem games were developed by Texas based 3D Realms, whose other titles include Shadow Warrior and Rise of the Triad as well as Max Payne (developed in partnership with Remedy Entertainment).

Duke Nukem Forever will be the first Duke title published by Take Two Interactive, who acquired the rights by purchasing Gathering of Developers, who had bought the rights from Infogrames who in turn had them by buying GT Interactive and so on and so forth....