Duke Nukem II: Episode 1 – The Apocalypse

Lore & Background

The game is set on Earth 'sometime in the early 21st century'. Duke returns to Earth after the events of Duke Nukem II, but his ship is shot down over Los Angeles. He fights an alien invasion, mutating the LAPD into Pig Cops. The story unfolds across episodes: L.A. Meltdown, Lunar Apocalypse, Shrapnel City, The Birth (Atomic Edition), and Alien World Order (20th Anniversary World Tour).

In Their Own Story

The sky bleeds red over the city. Duke Nukem kicks open a door into a street littered with overturned cars, their alarms wailing into the droning hum of alien ships. A Rigelatin patrol spots him—three of them, with bulbous heads and clawed hands. Duke grins, hefting his shotgun. 'Time to kick ass and chew bubblegum... and I'm all out of gum.' The first blast sends an alien flying into a shattered storefront. Duke moves forward, each step crunching on broken glass, as the mind-control tower looms ahead, pulsing with sickly green light like a diseased heartbeat.

Reader's Guide

As a first-person shooter, gameplay involves moving through levels from Duke's point of view, shooting enemies. Environments are highly destructible and interactive. Levels are non-linear, with air ducts, back doors, and sewers. Duke's arsenal includes the Mighty Foot, pistol, shotgun, chain gun, RPG, pipe bombs, freezethrower, shrink ray, laser land mines, Devastator, and in the Atomic Edition the Expander, and in the 20th Anniversary World Tour the Incinerator. Items include medkit, steroids, night vision goggles, HoloDuke, protective boots, aqua-lung, and jet pack.

Did You Know?

• The shareware version was released on January 29, 1996, and the full version on April 19, 1996.
• The Plutonium PAK expansion was released on November 14, 1996, adding a fourth episode and updating to version 1.4.
• The Atomic Edition, a standalone version with the Plutonium PAK content and version 1.5, was released on December 17, 1996.
• A fifth episode was released on October 11, 2016, with 20th Anniversary World Tour published by Gearbox Software.
• The game was developed on a budget of roughly $300,000 by a team of 8 to 13 people.