Duke Nukem Never has been in development for well over 5 years.
When the initial work began on Duke Nukem Never, it was done using the Quake engine. There was a November 1997 PCGamer issue Duke cover story with screenshots.
<a href="http://www.apogee1.com/images/magazines ... .jpg"><img src="http://www.apogee1.com/images/magazines/pcgamcov.jpg" width=195 height=268 border=1 alt="Duke Cover"></a>
By the time Duke Nukem Never switched to the Unreal engine in June 1998, it was using the Quake 2 engine.
http://www.gameslice.com/editorial/0616dnf.shtml
http://www.planetduke.com/features/inte ... 16_1.shtml
http://duke4.com/?articles/bigswitch.shtml
Here is the article Floater is talking about: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,128 ... -3,00.html