Duke Nukem Forever Leaked on BitTorrent

Amidst much fan-fare and anticipation of the long-awaited release of Duke Nukem Forever (DNF)—the sequel to the first person shooter video game—was leaked to BitTorrent on Monday.

The scheduled release is for June 14, however, the leak will potentially divert sales for Take-Two Interactive subsidiary 2K Games, the publishers of the game.

DNF’s leak was published on TorrentFreak.com, an online community of BitTorrent users. Although different fake copies of DNF had been leaked over the past several weeks, the website confirmed that this week’s leak was the real thing.

The leak serves as the latest embarrassment for the franchise’s developers, as its excessive development time has been parodied by many gaming websites. Now, some consumers are taking matters into their own hands to get the game “released.”

DNF’s leak is not the first obstacle associated with the release of the game. In fact, having a release date of this summer is already a coup. The game has taken 14 years to develop with many fans and video game critics calling the title vaporware and wondered if a sequel to the popular 1996 title would ever hit store shelves. Its original developers promised a release date of mid-1998.

But after some power struggle and switching of game engines—the backbone of the 3D game—from Quake to Unreal to Doom 3, DNF finally seemed like it would take flight by the mid-2000s.

However, the development team for DNF, 3D Realms, was fired by Take-Two Interactive in May 2009 after claiming the development team had failed in their obligations.

Take-Two filed a suit against 3D Realms for damages and to recover the $12 million it originally paid for the franchise. The lawsuit was later settled last year.

The franchise is known for its title character, Duke Nukem, a gun-toting, wise-cracking hero based on Hollywood icons such as Sylvester Stallone’s Ramo and Bruce Willis’s John McClane.

A trailer of DNF was released last week, and 2K Games promises a June 14 release, for good, this time.