Duke Nukem 3D has just turned 30 years old: Hail to the King, Baby

Duke Nukem 3D has just celebrated its 30th birthday, with former webmaster at Apogee and 3D Realms, Joe Siegler, uploading the shareware version of Duke Nukem 3D v1.0 to Apogee's BBS Software Creations on January 29, 1996.

This specific version of Duke Nukem 3D featured the first episode -- "LA Meltdown" -- providing gamers with an early tease of the game, after its legendary hype and feedback. A few months later, the full version of Duke Nukem 3D was released and I remember being absolutely in love with it, and pumping many, many hours into playing it with friends and family over LAN for a large period of time.

Duke Nukem launched in its original form in 1991 as a title for MS-DOS, later releasing for Windows and moving into "3D", even though it wasn't quite 3D like Quake was in 1996. Duke Nukem 3D was met with major criticism at the time for its sexual and mature themes, and I remember here in Australia, the version was edited to remove enemy blood splatters, adult magazines, and more... but there were always ways around that.

Siegler posted on X, saying: "Happy Birthday Duke Nukem 3D! 30 years ago (29 Jan 1996), I uploaded Duke3D v1.0 shareware to Software Creations, & a legend was unleashed on the world. This pic is George Broussard pointing to said upload. Was a super fun game to work on - many happy memories. #AlwaysBetonDuke".

Scott Miller, Apogee creator, added: "Duke Nukem 3D is 30 years old. Wow. Here's a look at the game's first level, Hollywood Holocaust, created by Allen Blum. This was everyone's first experience with the game and we wanted to make sure it kicked off in a great way".