Duke Nukem Reloaded var ett projekt lett av Frederick "fresch" Schreiber och var menat att bli en remake av den gamla actionklassikern Duke Nukem 3D gjort i Unreal Engine 3-motorn med moderna texturer och grafik. Projektet övergavs dock plötsligt.
I ett samtal med Penny Arcade berättar Schreiber om hur det gick till när han pratade med företaget:
"We closed down the project ourselves based on what Gearbox told us, that there was no chance, little chance, that we would ever see it out, that they would allow it to ever see release. They saw it as a project we could create for our own sake, and that's not what we were interested in, we wanted to share this with the world. So that was kind of how Duke Reloaded ended."
Schreiber hade besökt företaget år 2011 strax innan Duke Nukem Forever släpptes och det möttes inte av hyllningskörer. Han presenterade sitt spel för fyra grupper på Gearbox och de verkade tycka om vad de såg av arbetet som gjorts. Sen mötte han företagsledarna.
"That was a weird meeting. They were very impressed by the demo, but what was weird was that they kind of expected it to be something else. I think they expected it to be a mod, sort of the Duke Nukem high resolution pack. I think they kind of forgot to look at the updates we sent."
Tanken med spelet var inte att ge originalet lite nya texturer utan att göra om det helt i en ny motor för att visa hur det hade kunnat se ut som ett modernt AAA-spel. Företagsledarna var imponerade av vad de såg men Schreiber berättar att han blev tillsagd att projektet inte under några omständigheter fick visas upp för någon.
"The puzzle seemed to come together. If we showed this to people they might not spend money on Duke Forever, which was badly reviewed. They have big investments from Take Two, and of course they spent a ton of money on the Duke franchise, so it's their responsibility to make as much money from Duke Forever as possible. I can definitely see the decision from their side."
"We felt like why were we being punished, and why were the fans being punished, because we had created something that was too good? That was how the whole thing ended."
Det finns dock hopp för de som verkligen hade velat se projektet bli verklighet, menar Schreiber.
"It's been a couple of years since Duke Forever was out, and maybe the disappointment is slowly fading away and people are getting ready to see something new. Then maybe we can bring it up again."
