Late Monday, 3D Realms' project leader for Duke Nukem Forever announced that the game would be dumping its use of the Quake II engine in favor of Epic MegaGames' Unreal engine.

　　George Broussard said, "The switch to the Unreal engine was simply a business decision, and it came down to what we wanted to do with Duke Nukem Forever and how best to achieve it. It's important to note that this decision has nothing to do with id software or our relationship with them, which still remains very strong. The game should not be significantly delayed but it will take a little time to get up to speed with the new engine and learn how to exploit it. Fortunately, all of our game data will transfer very easily, and we see being back to where we were at E3 within a month to six weeks."

　　GameSpot News spoke to Epic MegaGames spokesperson Craig Lafferty, who was excited about the announcement. We asked if he knew why 3D Realms had chosen the engine, and he thought about the move. He said, "The programmers wanted to do a lot of scripted events in Duke Nukem Forever. Unreal engine's powerful scripting capabilities fit what they wanted to do." Lafferty also said that now that 3D Realms has decided to go with the Unreal engine, the licensing agreement gives 3D Realms great support from the company, which will help 3D Realms with its task of taking the game and porting it over to its new engine.

　　We also asked if the fact that both 3D Realms and Epic are members of the Gathering of Developers had anything to do with the change of heart. "Not at all," Lafferty responded, "we showed the people at 3D Realms Unreal, and they liked the scripting capabilities. When they thought about what they wanted to do with Duke, they decided that the Unreal engine could help make their game better."

　　If the 3D Realms team can pull off the conversion process in the record-breaking four to six weeks Broussard referred to above, we'll see the fruits of its labor sometime before the summer ends. Until then, Duke fans will have to wait.