Gearbox had ideas to make a prequel story for the Duke Nukem blonde macho, but it didn’t end up being made (along with several other ideas).

After the launch of Duke Nukem 3D, we didn’t need much time to hear about Duke Nukem Forever, which quickly ended up falling into development hell. It will use the id Tech 2 engine (Quake II), no, wait; it will use the Unreal Engine… followed by years of wrangling between 3D Realms and Take-Two (who absorbed the company’s original base in Texas). The global financial crisis of 2007 laid an impact on the game that resulted in layoffs. Gearbox stepped in, resulting in pushing the game out the door in 2011 to… mixed results.

But Gearbox had other ideas: in 2008, it hired Janimation (who did later work on the cutscenes of Duke Nukem Forever) to create a cinematic to demonstrate Duke Nukem Begins. The game was put on hold and then cancelled, as there was a legal dispute over who owned the rights to the character. (It was later continuing between 3D Realms and Gearbox, which was settled, and now, as both companies are now officially under Embracer, it’s decided once and for all…)

The video below was directed by Gregor Punchatz, who previously worked as a modeller on the original Doom games and Rise of the Triad. In 2019, Punchatz leaked some of this footage, but he only decided to upload the full video now. “Because it is still a piece I am damn proud of,  I am releasing it 13 years after its creation. The whole team that worked with me deserves to see this released into the wild. I hope this somehow resurrects this version of the game by showing the world how awesome it would have been…” he wrote.

The video shows that Duke Nukem Begins would have been a third-person shooter with a four-player co-op. Duke could have dual-wield pistols and shotguns, use a pig’s arm as a melee weapon, and use the shrinker and the freezethrower as additional weapons. And if you think going with a TPS genre is weird, keep in mind that Duke started as a 2D platformer…

Skipping the chorus vocals from Rage Against The Machine’s Guerrilla Radio is a mistake, though!

Source: PCGamer