The "Duke Nukem Begins" Origin Story Game That Never Was

By goukijones — August 13, 2021
Tags: duke-nukem video

A grand vision for Duke!

In the video below you can clearly see a lot of work went into making this trailer. This from a 2008 Duke Nukem project and all sides had some pretty big ideas for the origin story Duke Nukem Begins. Gearbox hired Janimation, an animation company to make a “gameplay” video. What is referred to as a Vertical Slice - not actual gameplay - An animation video that show off mechanics, scenes, and story direction of the game. Like an E3 “demo” you see of a game that never ever gets made, they are just way more elaborate nowadays to make you think somebody is actually playing.

You see Duke freeze an enemy to break him apart, that’s a feature that would eventually be in the Borderlands series. Duke Nukem Begins was canceled because back then everyone was still arguing over the rights of Duke. Gearbox released Borderlands the next year on October 20, 2009.

Thank you to Gregor Punchatz for sharing this video on YouTube.

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The "Duke Nukem Begins" Origin Story Game That Never Was

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