The Duke Nukem series has had a long and storied history. The games were brought to life in the '90s, but then put on ice for 15 years. We now have some leaked files for the original version of Duke Nukem Forever that never made it out to the public. The 2D platformer series took a hiatus in 1996 and eventually returned in 2011, but not to the raucous applause it was hoping for.The leaked files are a bit tricky to access. You've got to download them and have the right sort of software, but there's plenty of text documentation to look at too. There are also people in the Twitter thread posting footage that they've extracted.RELATED: Play Meatgrinder, The Duke Nukem and Clustertruck Inspired Boomer Shooter, ImmediatelyThere's a document that contains notes on what the levels for the game would include. Mission one would have had a forest, caves, and a dam. The person who wrote the note writes that the game needs to hook the players immediately and make them say "wow". To do this it starts with a vehicle section.

The start would see Duke rappeling down a cliff and onto a jetski waiting below. This is a side-scrolling 2D platformer, but the plan was to allow Duke to leap into the air to dodge oncoming obstacles. In the '90s, this would likely have wowed players.

There would be Protonites on jet skis, mines, rocks, and scuba diving cyborgs to avoid. Rad. The writer got inspiration for the next part of the level whilst on a cruise, so they jokingly ask if they can write it off as a business expense. Now I see why people say gaming in the '90s was the Wild West. Check out the rest of the documentation for yourself if you want to see what they game could have been like.

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