Over the weekend in Garland, Texas, developer 3D Realms had its Christmas Party. According to the developer community manager Joe Siegler, the celebrations were like many previous events, full of mirth and merriment and (presumably) freely flowing beverages.

However, there was one major difference between this year’s 3D Realms bash and those previous. Apparently the evening revelry was capped by a brief teaser for the studios’ infamously delayed first-person shooter, Duke Nukem Forever.

“Several people had been secretly working late nights and into the wee hours of the morning preparing a special video for those at the party,” said Siegler in a post on the official 3D Realms Web site. “We’d like to thank the people on the team that worked so hard to create this teaser and the friends of 3DR that helped create it (Jeremy Soule and Julian Soule, Frank Bry, Jason Evigan and of course, Jon St. John).”

Why does a closed-door viewing of a title widely regarded as vaporware matter to a gaming public now allowed inside? It matters because around noon CST tomorrow, 3D Realms will be opening its virtual doors to the world to show off the Duke Nukem Forever teaser. The preview will be the first publicly screened DNF video since the 2001 Electronic Entertainment Expo and the first footage of the latest version of the oft-reworked game.

“After seeing the teaser we thought it was something we should share with all of you and while it’s just a teaser, rest assured more is coming,” said Siegler before thanking DNF fans for their “continued patience.” 3D Realms also released a new screenshot (above) from the latest version of the game, which shows its bare-armed, cigar-chomping hero.

Originally from GameSpot