Sad news from several days ago. Apparently, 3D-Realms, the team behind the original Duke Nukem 3D, has called it quits.

I’d known the follow-up to the original was long overdue, but I guess there were more problems than just getting the code done.

At any rate, in reading about this story, I discovered something very cool. A complete port of the original Duke Nukem 3D, targeted for Windows, called EDuke32, using all modern support code, including updated audio drivers, and support for OpenGL rendering engines.

Not only that, but there’s a whole fan base that have re-rendered all the level textures in full hi res! The difference is absolutely astonishing and really breaths new life into a wonderful old game. I actually found a deathmatch level I’d designed back in the day (sept 22, 1996 to be precise, the file still had the last modified date on it), loaded it up with EDuke32 and, with the textures from the hi-res pack, it looked spectacular. Far better than it ever did originally.

If you were a fan of Duke back in the day, it’s definitely worth the download.