Duke Nukem Forever is unbelievably heading towards its final, actual release date of May 3rd. While the single player campaign has been detailed a bit, the multiplayer offerings have been largely kept in the dark. Some details have finally leaked out from developer Gearbox Software, and you can read all about it after the break.
In a recent demo session covered by OXM, a number of details regarding the multiplayer were revealed:
- There will be two teams of four, for a total of eight players on any given map. One team is red, the other blue.
- 4 gameplay modes have been confirmed, with three having been sampled during this demo session: Dukematch (deathmatch), Team Dukematch (team deathmatch), Capture the Babe (capture the flag), and Hail to the King (king of the hill).
- In Capture the Babe, when you have picked up the other team’s babe she will occasionally start freaking out, slowing you down. tapping a button will allow you to “give her a reassuring slap” to calm her down.
- There will be ten maps at launch, including remakes of classic areas such as “Dukeburger” where everyone is shrunk while the environment is huge.
- Jetpacks are back, but only for multiplayer.
- Weapons that are now confirmed: pistol, shotgun, ripper chaingun, pipebomb, shrinker, RPG, freeze ray, tripbomb, railgun, and the devestator.
- You can only carry up to two primary weapons at a time, in addition to pipe and trip bombs.
- When a player is hit by the shrink ray, they can run around in an attempt to not get squished, and can still use their weapons, which at that point will only do 10% damage. After some time the effects of the shrinker will dissipate.
- Tripbombs can be planted on both other players and enemies alike – how they then work after being attached was not disclosed.
- The Holoduke is here as well, but with more functionality – a hologram appears wherever you set it down, and your player will become cloaked, setting you up to perform a stealthy kill.
- Steroids are here as well, which enables a one-hit kill via punch.
- A leveling system has been introduced, which allows you to customize your character. Points are mostly earned for kills, though there are special rewards for different feats performed such as killing someone while in Holoduke-induced stealth mode. The highest level attainable is 42, no word on a “Prestige” equivalent.
So does this information get you excited for the multiplayer aspect of Duke Nukem Forever, or are you just waiting for more details on the campaign? This game has a lot of hype to live up to, to say the least, and you can expect to read our final verdict when the game finally releases on May 3rd.
