Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever/Characters

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Duke Nukem Forever.

This article is a work in progress. ...Well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editor's notes.

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this.

To do: Plenty of things Focus on how the characters changed throughout development overall, rather than how they changed in individual builds (that sought of information would be better suited on prototypes pages of builds, if they are found.) Fact-check info about Bombshell. Characters that only existed as concept art should probably be discussed on the Concept Art section and its sub-pages.

The characters of Duke Nukem Forever changed a lot throughout development. This page will discuss miscellaneous character information that doesn't quite fit on the other sub-pages.

Duke Nukem

While the Duke still chews bubble gum and kicks ass as always, he changed a tad during development, especially when it came to his character model.

One idea was to have Duke change his outfit to suit certain levels.

It had been an idea to have Duke die at the end of Forever in an act of sacrifice to set up a fifth mainline game titled Duke Nukem Vengeance. However, it would've been revealed that Duke had survived and the last third of the game would see him as the lead.

Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison

Probably one of the most well-known and infamous pieces of cut content from Duke Nukem Forever, Bombshell has a very interesting history of her own.

Bombshell had started out as an OC of the Command & Conquer series but would later become the star of her own game. In 1996, 3D Realms had a team lead by brothers Billy (engine coder) and Jason Zelsnack working on a war-themed game simply called Bitch that starred a very early version of Bombshell. This version of Bombshell was described as a "female Rambo"-like character.

Scott Miller, probably seeing the questionable ethics of a game called "bitch" would begin thinking up of a much more marketable name. Some months later, Miller would watch the film Barb Wire starring Pamala Anderson.

1996 notes from Scott Miller about Bombshell.

This game would get scrapped, as the Zelsnacks and a few other employees would leave 3D Realms in early 1997 to form Rebal Boat Rocker, Miller would then convince George Broussard about giving her a role in Duke Nukem Forever. According to Todd Replogle, Miller would suggest the idea of Bombshell having a robotic arm, an idea of which George Broussard disliked for unclear reasons.

Bombshell was intended to fight alongside Duke, even being playable, in a few levels. The 2008 World Chart document describes many sequences seen in the final game that were to feature Bombshell but would end up having her replaced with either Duke or Captain Dylan.

The trailer from E3 1998 prominently showed Bombshell, this is the only footage of Bombshell in-game. When pressed about Bombshell's role in later builds, former developer Charlie Wiederhold would state the following:

Past 1998 she was not much more than an idea. She wasn't ever really implemented meaningfully though the design continued to move forward with her as a critical aspect and mission situations were built out as if she was actually there sometimes.

Bombshell was quite prominently featured in company Christmas cards by 3D Realms in 1998 and 2000.

Bombshell would receive a more "tactical" design by 2003, with her blonde hair changed out for black. Not much is known about Bombshell from this point forward, outside of likely still being an idea the developers wanted to do. One of the last public acknowledgements of Bombshell was in a September 2008 interview with Scott Miller.

Bombshell would ultimately be demoted to an EDF soldier NPC but was removed some time around 2009, likely thanks to cutting is shipping.

Bombshell seen in a prerelease screenshot circa 2009.

Not only was Bombshell planned to receive her own spin-off game, but she was going to star in Duke Nukem Vengeance as the main character.

It wasn't a totally waste though, as Bombshell would go on to star in her own self-titled game in 2016.

NPCs

Dog

There were ideas for Duke to have a dog companion, simply called Dog, some name. Giving Duke a dog pet was considered as far back as 1996, as shown in design documents.

Eva Pulitov

Eva Pulitov was a character planned to appear in the platformer iteration as a companion of Duke.

The idea of a female companion for Duke was later explored with Bombshell but any connection between these two are unknown.

General Graves

According to concept art, Graves may have betrayed the player at some point in the game, however this plot idea's existence only as concept art implies it wasn't considered seriously.

Gay Robot

A gay robot (whose name is unknown) was going to be in the game as a side kick for Duke, with the intent of showing how Duke related to a peer with a different sexual orientation then him but the robot was removed because of being it apart of a tragic ending by sacrificing itself with it's nuclear generator.

Randy Pitchford described the robot's story as "very sincere and real" and stated it might be explored in a hypothetical new game.

Gus

Gus was an old prospector meant to appear in Morning Wood. He was first since in the Quake II interaction and made his last public appearance in the E3 2001 trailer, likely being removed some time after that.

Holsom Twins

Mary and Kate Holsom were conceived for the game no earlier than the leaked 2008 world chart, where their uh, pleasuring of Duke is mentioned. Each Twin wore different colored outfits as seen their renders in the My Digs mode, one wore pink and the other blue, though a much lighter tone compared to the final.

Interestingly, a stripper seen in a 2008 screenshot from the XBLA port of Duke Nukem 3D uses the exact same character model as the twins.

Will Stiff

A character mentioned in the 2000 Story Script, his name is a rather obvious reference to actor Will Smith and likely intended as a parody of Smith's role as Agent J from the Men in Black films.

Antagonists

The main villain of the game changed hands a couple of times before the game ended up really without a main villain.

Doctor Proton

Doctor Proton appeared in the original Duke Nukem as that game's antagonist. He was set to return as the big bad of this game, filling the role from inception in 1996 to sometime in mid-2003, when his role started to be slowly reduced in favor of the Cycloids from Duke Nukem 3D. But Proton wouldn't totally miss out of the action, as he would return in the DLC singleplayer campaign The Doctor Who Cloned Me.

NegaDuke

NegaDuke was intended as an evil clone of Duke created by Doctor Proton. His initial design had long black hair, a nose piercing with an all-black outfit to go with, before being toned down to wear a collarless t-shirt and a buzzcut like Duke. Its not very obvious when NegaDuke was removed. He was planned to be playable in multiplayer.

Enemies

Assault Trooper

The Assault Trooper was once known as the Lizard Trooper

References

• https://joesiegler.blog/2020/11/my-story-of-3d-realms-apogee-part-viii/ "Bombshell is a game character that has a stupid long history with the company. Bombshell started life before we released Duke Nukem 3D, when we had a team working on a game called “Bitch”, and while that never went anywhere, the character survived."
• https://www.apogeeent.com/devblog/interview-with-darrin-hurd
• https://twitter.com/ScottApogee/status/1719814182667763815
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CASKDJNiLXA 8:45
• https://trademarks.justia.com/750/97/bitch-75097487.html