Interactive environments

Lore & Background

The game picks up after the events of Duke Nukem II, with Duke already on Earth. As Duke descends on Los Angeles in hopes of taking a vacation, his ship is shot down by unknown hostiles. While sending a distress signal, Duke learns that aliens are attacking Los Angeles and have mutated the LAPD. With his vacation plans now ruined, Duke hits the 'eject' button, and vows to do whatever it takes to stop the alien invasion.

Reader's Guide

As a first-person shooter whose gameplay is similar to Doom, the gameplay of Duke Nukem 3D involves moving through levels presented from the protagonist's point of view, shooting enemies on the way. The environments are highly destructible and interactive; most props can be destroyed by the player. Levels were designed in a fairly non-linear manner such that players can advantageously use air ducts, back doors, and sewers to avoid enemies or find hidden caches.

Duke's arsenal consists of the 'Mighty Foot' (a basic kick attack), a pistol, a shotgun, a triple-barrelled chain gun, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, pipe bombs, freezethrower and shrink rays, laser land mines, and the rapid-fire 'Devastator' rocket launcher. The Atomic Edition also has an 'Expander', the opposite of the shrink-ray weapon. The 20th Anniversary World Tour version also has an 'Incinerator', the opposite of the freezethrower.

Did You Know?

• The shareware version was originally released on January 24, 1996, while the full version was released on April 20, 1996.
• The Plutonium PAK, an expansion pack which updated the game to version 1.4 and added a fourth eleven-level episode, was released on October 14, 1996.
• The Atomic Edition, a standalone version that included the content from the Plutonium PAK and updated the game to version 1.5, was released on December 13, 1996.
• A fifth episode was released on October 11, 2016, with 20th Anniversary World Tour published by Gearbox Software.
• Duke Nukem 3D was developed on a budget of roughly $300,000, with a development team of 8 people for most of the cycle, increasing to 12 or 13 near the end.