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Celebrate 25 years of Duke Nukem 3D with this special trailer

Hail to the king by looking back at this special trailer for Duke Nukem 3D's 25th anniversary.

Ozzie Mejia

April 19, 2021 6:00 AM

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Last week, everyone at Shacknews gathered around to celebrate the site's 25th anniversary. While it started off life as a Quake fansite, the community's fandom extended far beyond that. There are many games from that era that helped build Shacknews into what it is today. One of them is Duke Nukem 3D, which is also celebrating its 25th anniversary. Let's take a look back at the game that helped launch Duke into the PC gaming stratosphere.

On this day 25 years ago, Duke Nukem 3D's version 1.3d was released, marking the official completion of the project. Duke Nukem is one of the pioneers of PC gaming, along with the original Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein. Fans remember the game for its first-person shooting, its destructible environments, its freedom of movement, and its arsenal of weaponry.

Of course, the game is also remembered for Duke himself. After spending the first few Duke Nukem games as more of a silent protagonist, Duke came into his own in this third game, becoming more of a 90s action hero. He was part Arnold, part Stallone, and part Bruce Campbell. He was Deadpool long before the character ever jumped from the comic pages to the big screen. And, of course, he was part Clint Eastwood, as voice actor Jon St. John based his performance on Eastwood's classic, Dirty Harry.

We'll be celebrating Duke Nukem 3D's 25th anniversary throughout the day. Be sure to drop by the Shacknews Twitch channel later today, as we play some Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour. In the meantime, if you like reading about anniversaries, be sure to catch up with everything we did to celebrate the Shacknews 25th Anniversary.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?