Speaking of companies unable to recapture past successes, Apogee Software was never really able to surpass the fame it had with Duke Nukem 3D.
At the time, Apogee published software under many different names depending on the genre of the game. 3D Realms was the name created for the burgeoning field of first person shooters, which became so dominant that Apogee changed its name to 3D Realms, and distributes software under that name to this day.
http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/157438297754/tech-backissues-speaking-of-companies-unable-to
Duke Nukem 3D was arguably one of the most influential and popular early 3D shooters along with Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. The game play was very similar to these games but a few things made it stand out.
This game was set in a near future post-apocalyptic world. It was released later than Doom and Wolfenstein 3D so there were some improvements in the graphics and more complex interaction with the environment. However, what really made it stand out was the humor of the over the top generic action hero parody that was the main character. After many development delays and other set backs a sequel was eventually released fifteen years later in 2011 and while it was a good game it just couldn’t re-capture the same magic. An official fifth episode to the original game was also released in 2016 entitled “20th Anniversary World Tour”.
Pictured above is the Atomic Edition which was just the latest version of the original game engine along with a 4th episode that was originally released as part of the Plutonium PAK expansion (the original game included 3 episodes). The original game was PC only (DOS) but Duke Nukem Forever and the 20th Anniversary World Tour (which includes the original episodes) have been released on multiple systems. This is definitely a game worth playing if you haven’t tried it.
https://steemit.com/retrocomputing/@darth-azrael/duke-nukem-3d-atomic-edition-pc-dos-1996