Three guesses as to which greasy bastard was involved.
So back around 2008, Duke Nukem Forever still hadn’t released. And at the time, Gearbox was looking to make their own Duke game, with blackjack and hookers grease and levels started by Randy and finished by someone else. Specifically, a game that would serve as an origin story for Duke. So they called up Janimation to mock up a trailer for this proposed game.
Naturally, this all fell through due to legal troubles with ownership for Duke; see, 3D Realms still technically, you know, owned the IP back then; or at least to such an extent that making such a game was not possible for ol’ Randy. After 3D Realms folded, it didn’t matter anymore; Gearbox got the rights, finished up DNF, and Duke Nukem Begins was canned.
But the trailer survived, and was recently uploaded by one of the animators, Gregor Punchatz. As he states in the video’s description:
In 2008, when I was working for the good folks at Janimation in Dallas Tx,
we were hired by Gearbox to create a vertical slice (an animated version of what the game will look like) for the game “Duke Nukem Begins”, a Duke origin story.
I headed up this project, as the director at Janimation, and did a lot of the character development, including the design and modeling of Duke. We poured everything we had into making the most awesome cinematic Janimation had ever created. But unfortunately, we got word the game was canceled due to the legal issues with Duke Nukem at the time.
“Duke Nukem Begins” was never made.
It crushed us, as this was what we thought could help us compete with bigger players in the game trailer market at the time.
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…
Not to be mean to Mr. Punchatz, but aside from being very much “of the time”, it looks exactly like what you’d expect out of Gearbox “we forgot to fix a typo in the coding on the Xenomorphs” Software. In other words, when Randy says “just trust me, it’s a 7, 7 1⁄2 out of 10”, I know, uh, not to do that now. Especially with Duke. honestly, it all kinda reads like Randy screwing them over in retrospect.
On the plus side, the set pieces looked nice, so good on Janimation for that. Kind of game you’d imagine being decent in the hands of a developer that hasn’t ever allegedly spent the funds for one licensed game they were supposed to make on a completely different game.
Ah, well, doesn’t matter. 3D Realms and Gearbox are both now owned by Embracer group. One way or another, it’s all a matter of time…
Source: Gamespot
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