Monster Outbreak
Game
Game2011
Duke Nukem Forever
Developer Gearbox Software
Duke Nukem Forever is a 2011 first-person shooter game developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K for Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. It is the fourth main game in the Duke Nukem series and the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D (1996). Players control Duke Nukem as he comes out of retirement to battle an alien invasion. Like its predecessor, Duke Nukem Forever features pop culture references, toilet… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
397 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
70
Fresh
153 positive · 66 negative
95% range 63–76%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 153 | 66 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 5 | 24 | 122 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 1 | 14 |
| Mastodon * | 1 | 0 | 10 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mixed
4,690 of 7,119 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
70% recommend · 145 yes, 62 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 207 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mixed (8,096 of 11,664 positive).
Many players find Duke Nukem Forever a flawed but enjoyable game with personality. [1][2][3] Some reviewers criticize its dated gameplay, clunky mechanics, and repetitive design. [4][5][6] Several posters note the game's long development history overshadows its actual quality. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [4]
Duke Nukem Forever is one of those games where the journey hurt more than the destination. After 15 years in development hell, what we got was... this. The humor feels like it time travelled from 2001 and forgot to come back, the gameplay is clunky and the level design is all over the place. There are genuinely fun moments buried in here, but you have to dig through a lot of ♥♥♥♥ to find them. A fascinating artifact …
- [1]
This game is very mid, but overhated. It isn't going to blow you away but it also isn't total garbage. With all of that being said, a mid release from over a decade ago is still somehow better than 90% of the slop coming out of the triple A space in recent years. The industry should feel large amounts of shame for that fact that an old game that is widely considered mid is better than most modern games. Don't ever …
- [2]
WHY PEOPLE SAY THAT THIS GAME SUCKS, BRO I FREAKING LOVE IT. People can say whatever they want about Duke Nukem Forever, but honestly, I had a damn good time with it. Is it perfect? Hell no. Is it one of the greatest FPS games ever made? Probably not. But it has something a lot of modern games seem to forget: personality. The Duke Nukem humor, ridiculous weapons, aliens, explosions, one-liners, and completely …
- [3]
I’ll be real with you: Duke Nukem Forever... isn't all that bad. mean, this game was first announced way back in 1997 and took about 13 years to finally release. It swapped engines like it was changing outfits, survived development hell, and eventually limped to the finish line. And while it ain't the greatest, I don't think it deserve the hate it received either. We finally got our himbo back after all that time. …
- [7]
Duke Nukem Forever is a game whose reputation preceded it long before players ever got their hands on it. After fourteen years of turbulent development, multiple engine changes, studio shifts, and endless delays, the final product—completed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games—arrived in 2011 carrying expectations no game could realistically meet. What players ultimately received was a strange artifact: a …
Summarised from 34 of the 354 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
70% of the 207 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Duke Nukem Forever. The complaint that keeps coming up: gameplay feels dated and clunky. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
On the review aggregation site Metacritic, Duke Nukem Forever has a range score between 49–54/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews" on the PC and PlayStation 3 versions and "generally unfavorable reviews" on the Xbox 360 version. Criticism focused on the long loading times, clunky controls, offensive humor and dated design. The critics Elton Jones of Complex, James Stephanie Sterling of Destructoid and Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, creator of Zero Punctuation, named it among the worst games of the year. Many critics disliked the level design and shooting. Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot felt that the "joy" of the Duke Nukem 3D combat had been "flattened", with "little sense of impact", and found the…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 397 · most liked firstAdi Shankar trolls with mad cocaine energy. I laughed hardest at “game sales will go up” as if whatever show that comes out with with six episodes three years from now is gonna boost sales of the latest Duke Nukem game, Duke Nukem Forever. “Apache software” made me legitimately angry for a second.
neutral · AI labelView post →I’ll allow myself a mini-crashout, since I’m still a bit high from anaesthesia So every AAA game is Duke Nukem Forever now, right? Like, why can’t a multi-bajillion dollar company make “a” Prince of Persia? You guys used to crank out one of these a year 20 years ago
neutral · AI labelView post →I keep thinking about Yandere Simulator as a videogame and how it like symbolizes a certain kind of Western thought in regards to how games get built. We need features and the more features our game has the better it is. He did the Duke Nukem Forever thing by complete accident. No end goal.
neutral · AI labelView post →it's so funny that Duke Nukem Forever 2011 is listed on Steam as 'great on Steam Deck' like, brother i don't think that game is great on anything
negative · AI labelView post →A contest where there really are no winners. Nevertheless... According to Circana's Retail Tracking Service in terms of lifetime units sold in the US: - Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic 06) was the 238th best-selling Xbox 360 game - Duke Nukem Forever ranked 275th The gap between the two: 98k units
neutral · AI labelView post →Lemme go write a history of one of my favorite video game franchises and OH WAIT all copies of Duke Nukem 1 ceased to exist because of the Duke Nukem Forever lawsuit
neutral · AI labelView post →The Duke Nukem Forever 2001 Restoration project is in a playable state on Moddb.com. I played a little bit of this, and while it's definitely still a work in progress, it actually feels like a cohesive game coming together.
neutral · AI labelView post →Multiplayer on PS3 is alive. This group plays a different game every week. Last week - Duke Nukem Forever.
neutral · AI labelView post →honestly I don't blame him nor do I blame Valve if they never release it. At this point if a Half Life 3 did exist it would literally have to be the most perfect game in all of gaming to ever exist. It reminds me of the whole Duke Nukem Forever thing from like 10+ years ago.
neutral · AI labelView post →Remember how Duke Nukem Forever was in development for 14 years and we all played it and agreed that seeing design trends like tree rings running through a game was bad and then the industry decided to make all games like that
negative · AI labelView post →It's wild that we might actually live to see the true year of Linux on the desktop and it's because a game company wants to make sure that nothing interrupts their near monopoly on pc video game sales (from which they take a 30% cut + an upfront $100 fee). A Duke Nukem Forever type moment.
neutral · AI labelView post →One piece of board game lore I love is that BoardGameGeek exists because Duke Nukem Forever was so massively delayed.
neutral · AI labelView post →I didn’t even buy it or rent it. My cousin let me borrow Duke Nukem Forever. The game was barely out for a day or so, and somehow I didn’t catch on how bad of a rep it got. I’m convinced he did this on purpose. Absolute SLOG.
negative · AI labelView post →Did you know? After his famous "Delayed game" quote, Shigeru Miyamoto later retracted it, stating: "A rushed game is not so bad. I would like to enjoy Duke Nukem: Forever."
neutral · AI labelView post →The Steam teraleak contains Duke Nukem Forever stuff that will potentially help with modding the final game
neutral · AI labelView post →Duke Nukem Forever was an insane juggernaut of gaming culture during development because its dev cycle was that infamous. No More Heroes has a fucking joke about it. This game was infinitely more relevant before it came out than after.
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is very mid, but overhated. It isn't going to blow you away but it also isn't total garbage. With all of that being said, a mid release from over a decade ago is still somehow better than 90% of the slop coming out of the triple A space in recent years. The industry should feel large amounts of shame for that fact that an old game that is widely considered mid is better than most modern games. Don't ever buy this for full price but it isn't a bad pick up for a few dollars.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Duke Nukem Forever was intended to be the series' fourth main game after Duke Nukem 3D, but ended up spending well over a decade in development hell due to the fact that developer 3D Realms wanted the game's playtime to last forever.
neutral · AI labelView post →“Duke Nukem Forever” was both a game and a description of how game development is gonna be.
neutral · AI labelView post →Duke Nukem Forever has been in existence for a longer stretch of time than it took for the game to be made.
neutral · AI labelView post →Oddly kind of a depressing feeling now that silksong is actually out, and with bloodlines 2 around the corner I'm no longer going to have a Duke Nukem Forever style infinitely delayed game to joke around about. Truly the end of an era 😭
neutral · AI labelView post →Post a random game from your collection This was a copy of Duke Nukem Forever I bought from a second-hand game store back in Alaska. They didn't have the original cover, so a worker there just drew on the back of a ghost recon cover.
neutral · AI labelView post →Duke Nukem Forever wasn't funded by selling $20,000 packages for ships that aren't even coded into the game yet. Laaaaaaaaawwwwsuuuuuuuuiiiiiiit
neutral · AI labelView post →Duke Nukem Forever - Too Late, Too Crude, Kinda Fun I went into DNF with expectations buried six feet under. I knew the development hell lore, the backlash, the memes. This wasn’t curiosity. This was morbid fascination. And honestly, that mindset is exactly how this game should be played. I finished the full main campaign and the DLC. Yes, willingly. Mostly powered by ironic laughter, nostalgia fumes, and occasionally admitting, against my better judgment, that I was actually having fun.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Playing through Duke Nukem Forever for the first time. I dont think this game is an instance of incompetence. I think it actually hates Duke Nukem. it's also boring. i got to the hive and literally had to stop myself from falling asleep at my desk.
negative · AI labelView post →I'm sort of a Scholar of Duke Nukem Forever, in that I played it through once and played the leaked 2001 build and am just in general so insightful that it's like I was there at every moment in history, and I'll tell ya, that game was nearly good. Nothing's ever been as fumbled as that
neutral · AI labelView post →It's time to kick ass and chew bubble gum... and I'm all outta gum From its announcement in 1997 to its official release in 2011, this game underwent a 14-year development cycle. This is also why, when compared to much more polished 2011 releases like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3, Duke Nukem Forever feels like something made by cavemen. Now to the game itself, I’m genuinely happy that this title still carries on the series’ most iconic design where you get to use all kinds…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →WHY PEOPLE SAY THAT THIS GAME SUCKS, BRO I FREAKING LOVE IT. People can say whatever they want about Duke Nukem Forever, but honestly, I had a damn good time with it. Is it perfect? Hell no. Is it one of the greatest FPS games ever made? Probably not. But it has something a lot of modern games seem to forget: personality. The Duke Nukem humor, ridiculous weapons, aliens, explosions, one-liners, and completely over-the-top situations make the game memorable. The game definitely has its flaws,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Duke Nukem Forever is now a retro game. You’re welcome.
neutral · AI labelView post →You know, I didn't hate Duke Nukem Forever, But I sure didn't love it either. Like any drooling millenial nerd gamer during the 90s, Duke Nukem was basically my coming of age game. It was the game that transitioned me from the innocent stary-eyed weasel kid to a full grown horny, acne ridden moron that I became in my teenage years. Duke Nukem 3D, in its heyday, was a new frontier of gaming. It had attitude and personality, but it also had intelligent game design, memorable enemies, meaty guns,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Duke Nukem Forever is such a fascinating game and one of the things that's most fascinating about it is that it wound up being strangely predictive of a lot of the issues facing tons of other games all these years (or 1 Duke Nukem Forever dev cycle, heh) later
neutral · AI labelView post →I called in sick to work and drove to the next town over to buy this on launch day. I was the only one at the Wal-mart when it opened and the lady working electronics sighed and had to go get the box with the games in it out of the back. As I was leaving an unwashed looking skinny man with long greasy hair and cartoon pajama pants was entering the store, I knew why he was at Wal-mart so early before we made eye contact. He saw my copy of Duke and immediately started a power walk to the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Duke Nukem Forever I beat the base game twice AND the DLC campaign in order to get all the Steam cheevos. I’m one of those sickos that actually waited forever for the game to come out, and months before release, I had very low hopes. But I felt like I needed closure. Don’t play Duke Nukem Forever.
negative · AI labelView post →I’ll be real with you: Duke Nukem Forever... isn't all that bad. mean, this game was first announced way back in 1997 and took about 13 years to finally release. It swapped engines like it was changing outfits, survived development hell, and eventually limped to the finish line. And while it ain't the greatest, I don't think it deserve the hate it received either. We finally got our himbo back after all that time. The pacing can feel like someone stapled together, and it feels a little…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very cool and healthy that every game is basically Duke Nukem Forever now.
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm not done with this game. Reply with a number between 1 and 400 to discover your Duke Nukem Forever Balls of Steel Limited Edition Guide horoscope!
neutral · AI labelView post →This game and its story dlc are a solid 6/10. I like it. Its a bad game in eyes of many, but to me its a guilty pleasure, Duke carries the entire game, his voice is legendary. Shame we'll never get another Duke Nukem game, he's too based for today's modern clown world.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →GTA deserves one more game that will be stuck in eternal development hell that will release only after 20 years and be of quality of Duke Nukem Forever
neutral · AI labelView post →The takeway isn't that games by small teams can't be allowed to take their time in development, but rather that communication is essential. Also in-jokes about games never coming out is deeply ingrained in video game communities. Hello, Duke Nukem Forever, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Half-Life 3.
neutral · AI labelView post →So much this. Easter eggs are supposed to be hidden references to something else entirely. Like when a game included a headcrab and a crowbar in an elevator you had to search for, that's an Easter Egg. In Duke Nukem Forever when they showed Master Chief's helm to riff on his armor, that is not
neutral · AI labelView post →15 years ago today, Duke Nukem Forever was released (14 Jun 2011) - the end of a long twisted path for that game. I was there at the start when it began (Apogee/3DR), and I was there at the end (with Gearbox) when released. Met Jon St. John at the release party. So many memories #AlwaysBetonDuke
neutral · AI labelView post →This week’s #RandomGameSaturday pick is one of the most infamous games ever, a game that spent 14 years in development, Duke Nukem Forever. I’ve definitely played worse games, but this one is far from good 😆
negative · AI labelView post →On today's episode, we'll be taking a look at Duke Nukem Forever! A game that, just like my body, was completely ruined by 13 years of testosterone
negative · AI labelView post →It’s 2011. I’m up late after a payday. I’ve had a few drinks and looking at Steam for a new game to play. Oh right. Duke Nukem Forever came out. Let’s get it at full price. It can’t be that bad… It was.
negative · AI labelView post →To this day, I will never regret anything more than when teenage me traded in every good game I had at the time in order to buy Duke Nukem Forever. If ya know, ya know.
negative · AI labelView post →You know what I think when I hear Duke Nukem? Driving and platforming. Even when this game came out, it was mid. And it stays the same in 2025. The crude, edgy humour will be hit or miss for most. You seem to spend more time solving environmental puzzles and driving than shooting aliens. The devs clearly enjoyed Half-Life, as many of the puzzles would be right at home in that game. Took me 6 hours to finish. 5/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Duke Nukem Forever is a game whose reputation preceded it long before players ever got their hands on it. After fourteen years of turbulent development, multiple engine changes, studio shifts, and endless delays, the final product—completed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games—arrived in 2011 carrying expectations no game could realistically meet. What players ultimately received was a strange artifact: a first-person shooter stuck between two eras, part relic of late-1990s design and…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game used to be a joke because of how long it took to develop. Flash forward to 2026 and you wait the same amount of time or more for the next Grand Theft Auto or Elder Scrolls. :(
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I liked Duke Nukem Forever, I kept waiting for it to get awful and it never did! Surprisingly fun game.
positive · AI labelView post →Every videogame now takes a Duke Nukem Forever devtime and studios are lucky if they get a single game released per generation so now 90% of current gen games are ports of games that can already be played by backwards compatibility because that's all the can release in under 8 years.
neutral · AI labelView post →all of the nonsense around Duke Nukem Forever made sense because DN3D was a genuinely very innovative game in its genre and you felt like the sequel had a lot to live up to. BG&E is merely “pretty good”
neutral · AI labelView post →Alien Rampage - The 2d sidescroller that started out as Duke Nukem Forever, only to be repurposed as this game.. It has everything you want from the 90s: Blood, gore, lots of weapons and smooth gameplay. Except music. They didn't do music. https://www.mobygames.com/game/5897/alien-rampage/
neutral · AI labelView post →that said alluding to Daikatana or even Duke Nukem Forever is inadequate for this kind of dev time and squandered money, there's really only one other game that's even comparable to GTA 6, and that's Star Citizen.
neutral · AI labelView post →Ignore the bad reviews and just play it and enjoy it but don't expect classic Duke 3D, but do expect some good time FPS.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →the game was a myth. and then it came out just because of a miracle made by Gearbox. and then it happened to be an outdated rip-off of Half-Life 2. and since then Duke Nukem is more like Prince Hamlet. to be or not to be? maybe it should stay a myth. maybe it's a miracle.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game. It was released in 2011.... all the people complaining today that it doesn't live up to todays games.... Take a hike you alien scum. Duke is still the King baby!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Duke Nukem Forever was a powerful joke and cultural object until the moment it actually released, at which point it became a shit game for cunts that everyone stopped caring about in a nanosecond.
negative · AI labelView post →Guy who hasn't played Duke Nukem: Yeah Duke Nukem Forever is a bad game but it's the perfect sequel to Duke Nukem 3D. I'm really smart, I promise!
neutral · AI labelView post →All game production has become Duke Nukem Forever
neutral · AI labelView post →I've been teaching my friends how to play Poker, and excitedly realized that my XBox 360 copy of Duke Nukem Forever "Balls of Steel Edition" comes with cards and poker chips. But it turns out they're tiny cards and only two poker chips. It's weird to be disappointed by that game again in 2024.
negative · AI labelView post →
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