Upcoming patch to expand Duke Nukem Forever's weapon limit [update: 'unlikely' for consoles]

by Richard Mitchell on Jul 29th 2011 1:30PM

Say what you will about how well Duke Nukem Forever treated the Duke Nukem 3D legacy, but one mechanic in particular is very un-Duke. Specifically, it's very strange that Duke Nukem Forever limits our brash hero's arsenal to a paltry two guns at a time. An upcoming patch aims to fix that.

Community manager Chris Faylor stated on the Gearbox forums that updates based on user feedback are "in the works for all three platforms." Along with some other fixes and additions, the PC update will raise Duke's weapon limit from two to four. Faylor didn't confirm whether or not the weapon limit would be raised on the Xbox or PS3 versions, saying that details on the console updates should be announced "as they're finalized."

Update: Sadly, it doesn't appear that the weapon expansion update will be coming to Xbox or PS3. In a new forum post, as reported by Shacknews, Faylor cited technical issues and noted that it is "unlikely that the expanded inventory can be enabled on consoles."

Via: Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Source: Gearbox, (Update)

Tags: duke-nukem-forever, gearbox, microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, xbox

Reader Comments (55)

Oh yay... 4... At least that's a start. A bloody shame they couldn't of bothered to listen to anyone who had played the "Exclusive" demo, or the demo after it was released.

@DevilSei

Indeed, too little, too late.

It's a step in the right direction. Too bad they can't make a patch to shorten loading times, or give us a decent ending to the story mode.

@My Prerogative Are they long on consoles? They're pretty quick on my PC, but everyone's mileage will vary as far as that goes.

@Softserve Even by 1997 standards DNF's load times are too long.

@Softserve

They are terrible on PS3. Should have gotten the PC version. It actually after every death it reloads the whole level for at least 20-30 seconds. It makes it so frustrating when dying. Especially if you have to redo some tedious platforming or bore through the 4X4 truck parts. It has moments but it's not worth it. Still shocked on how slopped together it is.

@FriedConsole On my computer I'd guess they're somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 seconds or less. It's not too bad.

@FriedConsole it bothered me at first, but later on I referred to it as the "rage cool down period"

@Softserve
If you have a bad PC the load times are long, like other games. Portal 2 has the same load time as DNF on both my i5 and i7 PCs.

Or those claiming it has long load times are just liars who jumped on the DNF bandwagon and haven't even played the game or demo.

@FriedConsole

"Still shocked on how slopped together it is."

how? it went through development hell for 10 years. it's amazing that it was released at all, at a time when the series isn't even relevant anymore. not trying to hate on it, because personally i loved the old Duke games, but how many 18 year olds (the key demographic of the FPS genre) ever played Duke in his golden days?

@Tihn Or maybe we're talking about the console versions.

@FriedConsole:
Yeah but it's even worse on the 360!

@blessrok
oh thats a nice touch should have done this in trials i wouldnt have so many broken controllers

@stevestone

No he's right. I bought Duke on both consoles because I thought it was going to be the best game ever. Load times are definitely longer on PS3, but they are still long on 360 too.

@pradius

Who the hell buys a game twice even if it is the best game ever? Wtf?

that's pretty sweet. I would love to see Duke as a guest character for Mortal Kombat

@Dance Mofo

Duke Nukem as a payable guest character in SoulCalibur V. Make it happen.

I don't understand why they would have a weapon limit at all. There should be no attempt at realism from something called Duke Nukem.

@making11s

I believe 3D Realms said that due to the controller limitation, that they only could put 2 weapons.

They also said that they added regen health and all that because its whats popular in today's age.

Sad...

@making11s

Found it;

Yeah, blame us for it if you want. It may change in the future and I don't know what will happen with it, but it was us. I stand by it too, as you cannot discount designing games for a modern world and part of that world is consoles where the bulk of the sales can be. And on those consoles you have a controller. We tried for a long time to support lots of guns but we simply could not find a nice way to map it to a controller, despite trying 4-5 designs. We gave it enough time and decided to stop swimming against the current and adopt what was basically the "standard".
Yeah, blame us for it if you want. It may change in the future and I don't know what will happen with it, but it was us. I stand by it too, as you cannot discount designing games for a modern world and part of that world is consoles where the bulk of the sales can be. And on those consoles you have a controller. We tried for a long time to support lots of guns but we simply could not find a nice way to map it to a controller, despite trying 4-5 designs. We gave it enough time and decided to stop swimming against the current and adopt what was basically the "standard".

--George Broussard

@xiLeShadow

Omg? why did Joystiq duplicate my post..lol

@xiLeShadow

Which is stupid because you can EASILY support multiple weapons on a controller. Resistance did it, fallout and oblivion do it. Mass effect 2 does it.

@xiLeShadow That really doesn't make much sense to me.

There are plenty of games that allow you to pick multiple guns from a controller. Have us hold the reload button down, it shows an overlay and you can quickly use the d-pad and stick to pick the guns in a circle.

This is basically the system Rachet and Clank has. It works fine.

@Uberdave Borderlands did it. "LOL controllers" is really a stupid, lazy excuse.

@xiLeShadow

A controller has nothing to do with how many weapons you can have. There are at least 10 ways you can handle switching more than two weapons when using a controller.

That has got to be one of the dumbest "rumors" ever repeated on the internet.

@xiLeShadow
What's sad is my friend's boss convinced them to put in the two weapon limit. He was the one to propose the idea. I tell my friend to yell at him every single day for me.

@Mal F4cti0n
It's not a rumour. That was an actual post at the 3DR forums.

@Faceless Troll
And Borderlands came from Gearbox also... how funny is that?

do people play this?

@wookiehole hell no lol garbage!

@type2red I'm sure we all elected you to speak for us. Thanks for your representation.

@wookiehole Yes. If you have a problem with that, you really should consider adjusting your priorities.

I think the weapon limit should be extended to include all the damned weapons, like a true 90's shooter hero can do.

On a related note, I am upset that I apparently had only five days to choose the platform on which I wanted to receive my free DLC. :-/

@darkinchworm
what platform did you want? I don't want the DLC, but I chose PC anyway. Figured I'd give it away.

@The Aquacharger
I wanted PC. Heck, if you are willing to part with it - which you totally don't have to do for my punk ass - you can hit me up at dark_inchworm at hotmales dot com.

Replace "hotmales" with, well, you know...

Console patch for this and the load times and I'll definitely play through it again.

I appreciate them fixing this. It really was a terrible idea in the first place to limit it to two. Four is a lot more reasonable.

It's a shame I already beat the game and have absolutely no interest in ever playing it again though.

Good move. Always bet on Duke.

I still never want to play this terrible game again.

You guys just listed a bunch of RPGs. With inventory screens. Duke Nukem doesn't have inventory screen. Its really hard to scroll through weapons on a controller while your in the middle of a big fight. There are no hot keys like on the PC. No matter what they would have done, people would have still bitched. I wish we could go back to the late 80's, early-mid 90's. The only people bitching about video games were parents. Now gamers are just a bunch tight wad whinny pussies.

*Stuff to get the game to shelves*
Graphics
Voices and Sounds
Some guns
A plot (lots of tits)

*Stuff that can be patched after release*
Everything else

4 guns, new hats, new modes....It dosn't matter, it's still a turd any way you dress it.

Funny how they aim to be more "realistic" with a 2-weapon limit but then make things "unrealistic" with regenerating health.

That's the fate of modern shooters, can only carry 2 weapons, regenerating health, its become basically a whack-a-mole game with the enemies! Cover and shoot, cover and shoot, etc.

@nerdydesi1 I felt like it made more sense in Halo, since it was your shield. Here it's EGO, which is kind of silly. So if he stands out of the way of bullets for a while, he gets all pumped up again? Whatever.

This is absurd. A primary reason to limit player inventory (as well as to provide regenerating health) is to let level and gameplay designers balance the user experience in a more controlled environment. If one does not know what weapons or how much health the player has, it becomes risky to provide broader experiences. Hence, Doom plays much better with a full inventory, but Halo would break if the player carried all weapons at the same time.

So what's the use of providing a larger weapon inventory *now*? Unless it is conceded that the level design and gameplay were *not* lovingly designed and that it would be hard to break Duke Nukem much harder than it already is.... But they'd never concede that, right!? Right?

@eudaimo I think on a more simple level, Duke is mostly just about shooting the crap out of things. To limit weapon selection in a game like that is mostly just silly.

At this stage, though, I think most people who cared probably just moved on to Serious Sam.

What? I already beat the game.. start working on the sequel instead!
4 weapons really?
I have a great idea! lets assign a weapon to each number on the keyboard. How come nobody has though of that before? :p

@Cristian0

Ooh great idea! And you know what else we can do? Make it so you can select your foot as a weapon AND make it so can kick with the tilda key. That way you can kick with both feet at the same time like some deranged Russian dancer of doom. I guess I should just go and reinstall Duke Nukem 3D, huh?

One of the achievements/trophies for this game is to hold the golden pistol all the way through the campaign. They probably can't change the weapon limit because it would affect how easy it would be to earn this achievement.

Meh, sorry. Too little too late.

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Duke Nukem Forever

Upcoming patch to expand Duke Nukem Forever's weapon limit [update: 'unlikely' for consoles]

Reader Comments (55)

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:33PM DevilSei said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:28PM SirUrza said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:35PM My Prerogative said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:37PM Softserve said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:54PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:55PM FriedConsole said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:59PM Softserve said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:07PM blessrok said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:11PM Tihn said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:30PM broken 4th wall said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:43PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 3:10PM stevestone said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 4:07PM Protege420 said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 4:27PM pradius said

Posted: Jul 30th 2011 8:29AM bm111 said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:35PM Dance Mofo said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 6:33PM Vladeon said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:39PM making11s said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:50PM xiLeShadow said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:56PM xiLeShadow said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:57PM xiLeShadow said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:59PM Uberdave said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:01PM Softserve said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:05PM Faceless Troll said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 3:15PM Mal F4cti0n said

Posted: Jul 30th 2011 4:54AM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Jul 30th 2011 4:55AM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Jul 30th 2011 12:33PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:40PM wookiehole said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:46PM type2red said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:51PM blessrok said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:56PM Repo Man said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:45PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Jul 30th 2011 4:55AM The Aquacharger said

Posted: Jul 30th 2011 6:45PM darkinchworm said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:50PM blessrok said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 1:53PM omgJOHN said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:04PM KungFuChaosNinja said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:05PM ChaosBladez said

Posted: Jul 30th 2011 4:02PM Punisher M1911 said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:09PM CaptainProtonX said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 2:27PM Slight of Ham said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 3:06PM nerdydesi1 said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 4:31PM Softserve said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 3:19PM eudaimo said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 4:32PM Softserve said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 3:35PM Cristian0 said

Posted: Jul 29th 2011 6:41PM Vladeon said

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Posted: Jul 29th 2011 4:42PM PoisonedAl said

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