See what the canceled Duka -apkrig reboot could look like

Do you remember a time when Duke Nukem Forever was considered a synonym for a game that will probably never come out? So you will definitely remember that this one fed the community joke in 2011, it actually rolled off the production lines of the Gearbox studio. He didn’t make a big hole in the world, which is probably underlined by the fact that he has since nuclear duke he didn’t appear in any of his own games, but in reality it wasn’t supposed to be the first and still last game in the series that Randy Pitchford’s team was working on. About four years before DNF, Duke Nukem Begins was created – a reboot of the entire brand, on which Gearbox collaborated with 3D Realms before the rights were sold. However, the game never saw the light of day, although it was mentioned in court documents, and only about a year ago, within the video portfolio of animator Gregor Punchatz, we were able to see fragments of a single trailer. However, with a separate and full-fledged release on the channel of the mentioned animator, he gets an even deeper context and we learn more about the project, which was to boldly venture into the waters of 3rd person shooters and introduce a much younger main character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiZHM1CLVy8

“When I worked for Janimation in Dallas in 2008, Gearbox approached us to create a vetrical slice for Duke Nukem Begins, the story of the birth of Duke,” Punchatz reveals in the video caption. He also mentions that he was directly responsible for the project and led it as a director, which meant, among other things, the production of many characters, including the design and modeling of Duke. “We put everything we had into creating the most amazing trailer Janimation has ever created. Unfortunately, we learned that the game was canceled due to legal problems at the time, “explains Punchatz. He encounters the dispute between Take-Two and 3D Realms precisely because of earlier iterations by Duke Nuk Forever, resp. inability to complete the game, which probably affected the described Duke Nukem Begins. That’s why, according to Punchatz, the game never came out, which, according to Janimation, they accepted with great disappointment. “We were overwhelmed because we thought it could help us compete with the bigger players in the game trailer market at the time,” recalls the animator.

Even today, regardless of the historical context, there are not only praise voices, although we would also like to know where Duke got his cigar.

He explains why he releases a full-length video on YouTube simply by saying that he is still very proud of what they created 13 years ago, and that the entire team at the time deserves fans to know about their great work. “I hope that by proving how amazing this game would be, it will somehow resurrect it today,” adds Gregor Punchatz. Looking at the video, we have to admit that the game looked quite fresh, but the question is how it would work for a passionate community of players after traditionally conceived works. Even today, regardless of the historical context, not only praise sounds, although we would also like to know where Duke got his cigar and since when it’s so cool that he has to choose between chewing gum and kicking ass. In the game, we would mostly do the latter in the presence of iconic weapons and enemies. A shrink weapon, a freezing beam, digging into enemies, pig cops and the Statue of Liberty – nothing is missing in the trailer, including the trampled soundtrack, which Gearbox later argued with its author Bobby Prince.

However, everything came to naught due to the problems described above and the game was most likely definitively canceled in 2014. At that time, another title from the famous series – Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction, was canceled, because of which – you guessed correctly – Gearbox also sued with 3D Realms. Several times later, it was not entirely clear what he had gained by buying the rights to Duke Nukem Gearbox, and licensing previous titles from 3D Realms to completely different teams that wanted to continue working on the games after a series of setbacks was repeated like a boomerang. At the moment, however, the series is asleep and walks around with the same caution as, for example, around Half-Life 3. When one wishes for something, it can be fulfilled, but it does not always have to be as one would imagine…