Remember, in 2011, 2K Games and Gearbox Software released Duke Nukem Forever which was to mark the big comeback of licensing in the limelight. Only here, the game was such a critical disaster (49% on Metacritic in its Xbox 360 version) that many players know how to turn their backs on this series which nevertheless had great potential. Something that we did not know, however, is that in 2008, Gearbox Software also had another project in the works, a certain Duke Nukem Begins. It was a prequel which returned to the origins of this cartoon character and which seemed to be played in third person view, as evidenced by this trailer published by one of the authors. It is indeed Gregor Punchatz, who worked at the time for the studio Janimation in Dallas, a company which had mandated by Gearbox to carry out the trailer of announcement in CGI. So yes, the result has aged a bit, but Gregor Punchatz’s intention is to highlight a work that has been thrown in the trash.
We put everything we knew how to make the most beautiful cinematic Janimation ever created, but unfortunately we learned right after that the game was canceled due to legal issues Duke Nukem was having at the time. … The whole team that worked alongside me deserves to see this trailer released. Hope this resurrects this version of the game by showing the world how awesome it would’ve been …
The conflict in question is none other than the lawsuit between 3D Realms and Gearbox, since 3D Realms had claimed the copyright on the franchise. Unfortunately, the courts ruled in favor of Gearbox Software in 2015, which managed to keep the license rights.
