Note from the admin: This article is a continuous work in progress and may contain errors. If you have good reason to believe anything in this article is mistaken, please make a correction and explain your reasoning. All visitors are welcome to contribute new material to this article.

The Duke Nukem 3D prototypes are builds of Duke Nukem 3D, Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, or Duke Nukem 3D: 20th Anniversary World Tour that precede their commercial releases. Several of these builds have either been leaked or officially released as freeware. However, most are only known from screenshots or demo footage.

According to the game's lead director and executive producer George Broussard, Duke Nukem 3D began development in 1994. Timestamped materials from extant sources show that development could not have started prior to January 2, 1994 and yet development was well underway by March 19, 1994. In the beginning, the game was known simply as "Duke Nukem III", and the development team, operating as an independent studio within Apogee Software, was known as "Core Software".

The initial conception of Duke Nukem 3D was not only heavily influenced but directly inspired by Doom. As early as March 1993, Doom was one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. At that time, the first Doom demo would not be available for another 9 months, but fans were already excited by Id Software’s pre-release screenshots, which were branded as the next project by the creators of the highly acclaimed Wolfenstein 3D. In fact, Ken Silverman compiled a computer program on March 6, 1993 that would allow him to view the pre-release screenshots on his computer. Having just recently published Ken’s Labyrinth through Apogee Software, Silverman casually mentioned to Scott Miller, the CEO of Apogee, that he wanted to adapt his 3D game engine from Ken’s Labyrinth to create a “Doom-style engine.” Miller, who wanted his studio at Apogee to develop a first-person shooter of their own, reached out to Id Software with a request to license their game engine, but Id Software declined. On March 30, 1993, Miller wrote a letter to Silverman, congratulating him on the commercial success of his new game and, in a sly reference to Silverman’s previously declared interest in developing a first-person shooter engine, noted that Id Software was not allowing anyone else to use their engine. Around this time, it was determined that hiring Silverman would be Apogee’s “next best option.” On April 13, 1993, Silverman created the file directory for a new game engine he titled “Build” because, in his own words, “I just needed to pick a name.” By August of that year, Silverman was receiving bug reports and feature requests from George Broussard, the creative director at Apogee Software who was monitoring Silverman’s progress on the new engine.

On December 3, 1993, Apogee Software published Duke Nukem II. One week later on December 10, Id Software published Doom. According to George Broussard, Duke Nukem 3D began development in 1994 as an attempt at merely copying features from Doom, a version of events partly corroborated by Ken Silverman. Taken at face value, Broussard’s statement would mean that development of Duke Nukem 3D could not have begun before January 1994. Broussard’s recollection of a 1994 start date is plausible given the December publication dates of Duke Nukem II and Doom, considering that the timing of American holidays likely would have delayed Todd Replogle and Allen Blum — who are credited as the co-creators of Duke Nukem II and Duke Nukem 3D — from starting an entirely new project. In addition, Silverman had not even incorporated sectors – the most basic unit of the game engine – into Build until January 2, 1994, so it is unlikely that the Build engine would have been available to Replogle and Blum to begin planning their 3D game any time before January.

Main Article: Nukeland (L9)

Nukeland is believed to be the first map, if not the first game asset, developed specifically for Duke Nukem 3D. In the change log packaged with the April 1994 Build demo on Ken Silverman's website, Silverman describes Nukeland as "my board" and uses it to demonstrate new features of the engine described in his revision notes, some of which are specifically addressed to the "Duke Nukem III team". Although the first revision notes in the change log are dated February 6, 1994, there is not enough information to infer the start date of Duke Nukem 3D's development, since Apogee is known to have licensed the Build engine to the Blood development team even earlier than the Duke Nukem team. However, judging by the map's title, Nukeland was apparently a demo map that Silverman had designed specifically for the Duke Nukem team, making it very likely that the map was shown to the team as part of their first introduction to the engine.

A fork of Nukeland with minimal changes would later appear in the December 1994 prototype, indicating that the developers clearly considered this a Duke Nukem map. The version packaged with the prototype, titled "L9.MAP", showed that the developers were using it to test the game's security camera functionality, which was not included in Silverman's core engine but was added by Todd Replogle. Based on their off-kilter, duplicative placement, it can be inferred that the security cameras did not yet function the same way as seen in later beta footage from April 1994, which strongly suggests this was the first map where the security cameras were being tested.

In the footage below, the video on the left shows the fork of Nukeland that was packaged with the April 1994 Build demo, and the video on the right shows the fork that is included in the December 1994 prototype of Duke Nukem 3D. Neither version is "older" than the other; both are forks with unique modifications from an older iteration of the map.

As a test map, it is unlikely that Nukeland is related to any map in the final game. However, a very tentative case has been made that Nukeland could plausibly have evolved into Faces of Death; in addition to sharing a few key geometric measurements, the sector chronology of Faces of Death is consistent with the map having once been an homage specifically to Ken Silverman, before later becoming an homage to the entire development team. Because the level designers were working with grid-based increments and because the two maps have such simple geometry, it is hard to establish or rule-out a definitive link between the two maps. (See Nukeland (L9)#Faces of Death for more information)

In the Duke4 forums, a few individuals with privileged access to development files have shared what they believe to be the oldest Duke Nukem 3D map to survive into the final game: Stadium. A screenshot was posted from the oldest archived iteration of the map. Because it features such a minimalist design and experimental shapes that seem out of place, it is possible this was one of the first maps Allen Blum created in order to familiarize himself with the Build engine.

In the change log packaged with the April 1994 Build demo, Ken Silverman wrote in his revision notes dated March 19, 1994:

For Duke Nukem III team:  CITY.MAP will not crash anymore with new version.  The  reason it crashed was because in your TILES.ART, you had  either ANMFD:0, ANMBK:0, or OSCI:0.  That caused a MOD 0  in my animation routine. I bullet-proofed that.  How about  fixing tiles #34, #112, or #114 in your TILES.ART. 

Given that the developers apparently had a map resembling a city and at least 114 graphics, it can be inferred that development was well underway by this point. Although the identity of "CITY.MAP" cannot be known for certain, it very likely corresponds to L6, a sprawling cityscape that uses almost the maximum map size permitted by early versions of the Build engine. As confirmed in the 20th anniversary developer commentary, Hollywood Holocaust and Red Light District were derived from two subsections of L6. There are no known screenshots from L6 or any other contemporaneous map from this time period.

Main Article: Duke Nukem IIID

In 2014, 3D Realms released footage from an early prototype of Duke Nukem 3D. In the video, the name "Duke Nukem IIID" appears at the top of the in-game menu. Richard "TerminX" Gobeille and Evan "Hendricks266" Ramos, both of whom signed non-disclosure agreements and were given an archive of Duke Nukem 3D development data, have identified this prototype as the earliest build of the game. Ramos, who actually recorded the footage, affectionately nicknamed the prototype "LamerDuke" because it preceded the December 1994 prototype, officially known as LameDuke. Gobeille later disclosed that the prototype in the video dates to April 1994.

Early concept art for the Jellyfish is dated November 7, 1994.

See Also: LameDuke

The December 1994 prototype, officially known as LameDuke, was finished and compiled on December 30, 1994.

The table below summarizes the suspected relationships between maps in LameDuke and later maps from the Duke Nukem 3D development team.

	Relationship*	Later Map	Status†
L1	iterated	AHB-Space	confirmed
	iterated	Spaceport	confirmed
	absorbed	Fusion Station	confirmed
	absorbed	Occupied Territory	confirmed
	absorbed	Tiberius Station	confirmed
	absorbed	Lunar Reactor	confirmed
	absorbed	It's Impossible	weakly supported
	not split	Tiberius Station	strongly supported
	not split	Lunar Reactor	strongly supported
L2	iterated	Dark Side	confirmed
	absorbed	Fusion Station	weakly supported
L3	absorbed	AHB-Space	strongly supported
	absorbed	Spaceport	strongly supported
	absorbed	Fusion Station	strongly supported
	absorbed	Tiberius Station	weakly supported
	absorbed	Dark Side	strongly supported
	absorbed	Duke-Burger	weakly supported
L4	iterated	Fusion Station	weakly supported
	absorbed	Lunar Reactor	confirmed
L5	forked	Incubator	strongly supported
	forked	Rabid Transit	confirmed
	forked	Babe Land	strongly supported
L6	split	Hollywood Holocaust	confirmed
	split	Red Light District	confirmed
	split	Bonaventure test map	confirmed
	absorbed	Freeway	confirmed
	not split	Freeway	strongly supported
L7	iterated	Warp Factor	strongly supported
	absorbed	It's Impossible	strongly supported
L8	scrapped
L9	iterated	Faces of Death	weakly supported
	not forked	Zoo	strongly supported
M1	iterated	Freeway	strongly supported
	forked	M2	confirmed
	absorbed	Toxic Dump	weakly supported
	absorbed	Launch Facility	strongly supported
M2	forked	M3	confirmed
M3	recreated	Launch Facility	weakly supported
M4	scrapped
	not iterated	Duke-Burger	strongly supported
M5	iterated	Critical Mass	confirmed
	absorbed	Occupied Territory	weakly supported
M6	iterated	Hotel Hell	confirmed
M7	absorbed	Fusion Station	strongly supported
	not absorbed	Critical Mass	strongly supported
M8	iterated	N8	confirmed
N1	iterated	Death Row	confirmed
N2	iterated	Derelict	confirmed
	forked	N3	confirmed
N3	absorbed	Dark Side	strongly supported
N4	scrapped
N5	scrapped
N6	iterated	Toxic Dump	strongly supported
	absorbed	Death Row	strongly supported
N7	absorbed	Freeway	strongly supported
	absorbed	Bonaventure test map	weakly supported
N8	absorbed	Overlord	confirmed
	not iterated	Overlord	strongly supported
O1	absorbed	Babe Land	weakly supported
	absorbed	Sweeney	weakly supported
O2	scrapped
O3	recreated	L3	weakly supported
O4	iterated	O2	confirmed
WAR1	iterated	O1	confirmed
WAR2	scrapped

^{*"Iterated" means the later map was directly developed from the earlier map. "Split" means the earlier map was divided into subsections, each of which was directly iterated into a later map. "Forked" means multiple maps were directly iterated from different versions of the earlier map. "Absorbed" means parts of the earlier map were copied-and-pasted into an already existing version of the later map. "Recreated" means the later map was started as a second draft of the earlier map, possibly to correct for design limitations or performance issues.
†"Confirmed" means either that the relationship has been acknowledged by individuals with privileged access to development files or that the relationship can be easily verified due to perfect alignment across large-scale geometric spaces. "Strongly supported" means there are multiple lines of concrete evidence, such as sector chronology, geometric measurements, matching z-coordinates, matching textures, or beta screenshots, with little or no known evidence to the contrary. "Weakly supported" means there may be significant contradictory evidence, or the relationship may be primarily based on thematic similarities and abstract arguments, rather than concrete evidence.}

Duke has a scar on the back of his left hand. The Pistol uses the faded sprite from LameDuke. The Tazer has not yet been replaced with the Mighty Foot.

Three of these images come from the June 1995 issue of Joystick (#61), and two come from an individual with privileged access to development files. The scar on Duke's hand has been removed, and the Tazer has been replaced with the Mighty Foot.

A beta map known as AHB-Space appeared on season 5, episode 14 of GamesMaster, a British TV show. The episode aired on December 21, 1995, but there are several clues that the prototype shown in the episode comes from April or early May. Screenshots dated May 18, 1995 (such as this one) show that the blue HUD from the GamesMaster episode had already been replaced with the green HUD found in many subsequent screenshots. However, the fonts on the signs above the doors are no longer red like in earlier screenshots. Instead, they have been replaced with the tan font found in subsequent images. In addition, the scar has been removed from the back of Duke's hand.

Except for the starting location and presence of Laser Tripbombs, the map shown in this footage is indistinguishable from the May 9, 1995 demo footage.

Numerous promotional screenshots were packaged on a CD with the September 1995 issue of Score Magazine. These screenshots are unusual in that the files on the CD contain precise timestamps, down to the minute. These timestamps concord with other known facts about the Duke Nukem 3D development timeline, and they even track the order of progression within specific levels, exactly as one would expect. Therefore, these timestamps are considered reliable.

In addition, a demo reel dated May 9, 1995 has been made publicly available.

May 9, 1995

In early 2014, Richard "TerminX" Gobeille and Evan "Hendricks266" Ramos signed non-disclosure agreements and were given an archive of Duke Nukem 3D development data. 3D Realms gave them the files because they wanted the two to identify salvageable files and to package them in a distributable form. One of the project's first discoveries was a demo reel dated May 9, 1995. Gobeille recorded his live reactions while watching the reel with his son and posted the resulting video to the Duke4 forums. Shortly thereafter, Ramos uploaded the demo reel to YouTube. However, a lawsuit with Gearbox Software ultimately brought an indefinite halt to the project.

The demo reel below is still available on YouTube. In order of appearance, the video shows AHB-Space (L1), L6, L5, early Dark Side (L2), the Bonaventure test map, and early Warp Factor (L7).

May 10, 1995 @ 2:12:54

May 10, 1995 @ 2:20:00

May 10, 1995 @ 2:20:32

May 10, 1995 @ 2:23:06

May 10, 1995 @ 2:24:02

May 10, 1995 @ 2:30:10

May 10, 1995 @ 2:32:24

May 18, 1995 @ 20:31:48

May 18, 1995 @ 20:36:24

May 21, 1995 @ 21:32:02

May 21, 1995 @ 21:33:32

May 21, 1995 @ 22:43:44

May 21, 1995 @ 22:50:26

May 21, 1995 @ 22:52:06

May 21, 1995 @ 22:57:04

May 21, 1995 @ 23:00:50

May 21, 1995 @ 23:11:00

May 27, 1995 @ 14:09:32

May 27, 1995 @ 14:15:10

May 27, 1995 @ 15:12:46

May 1995, unknown day

Lee Jackson, the musician who composed roughly half of the soundtrack for Duke Nukem 3D, released the following two unused music tracks. The first is an early version of "Plasma," the track that appears on Dark Side in the final game.

The second is "Beehive." An early version of this track can be heard for a couple seconds during a section of the May 9, 1995 demo footage.

The remaining screenshots come from the Bonaventure test map. A couple seconds of video footage from this map can be found in part of the May 9, 1995 demo footage. The area with the cylindrical, yellow gears was incorporated into Death Row in the final game.

This image is difficult to date.

Several screenshots that were packaged with the September 1995 issue of Score Magazine were dated to June, rather than May. Three of these have precise timestamps like the May screenshots, but two do not have reliable timestamps.

The two images with unreliable timestamps have copied-and-pasted messages across the tops. Several of the May screenshots also had these messages (those versions are not shown on this page), but the images with these messages included versions with and without the messages. The versions with the messages all had matching timestamps, indicating they were simultaneously processed in batches to apply the message. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that screenshots with this message across the top have reliable timestamps.

In fact, the images dated June 1 and June 30 come from batches of several images with known May dates that also had this message across the top, suggesting these two may have also come from May.

June 1, 1995

As explained, this image is dated June 1, but because the message across the top was applied as part of a batch with some of the May screenshots, this image may also come from May. However, it was the only file from this batch that did not come with a matching file without the message.

June 4, 1995 @ 19:17:24

June 4, 1995 @ 19:18:40

June 4, 1995 @ 19:19:32

June 30, 1995

Similar to the June 1 image, this image has a message across the top, suggesting its timestamp may be unreliable. It was processed in a batch with several May screenshots, but unlike the others, there was no version of this image without the message.

These screenshots are difficult to date. All of these maps either have not been seen in previous screenshots or have been significantly updated. Novel sprites are introduced for some of the enemies, and the Trooper's jetstream, which was once semi-transparent, is now opaque. The concept art is foreshadowing the Assault Trooper (particularly the alternate sprites used to make the Firefly Trooper), so it likely precedes the Assault Trooper's first appearance.

One image dated August 6 was leaked from a verified source. Another seven images were directly posted to the Internet by the developers. Because these screenshots were directly posted to the Internet without the delays associated with printing or publishing, these screenshots are likely representative of the build at that time.

These screenshots depict an updated HUD, and the colored lights that appear on the player's weapon now appear beside the ammo in the HUD.

August 6, 1995

August 11, 1995

Except for the screenshots with HUDs, most of the images from this period are very difficult to date. One crucial assumption is that screenshots depicting blue Assault Troopers must precede green ones. This assumption is based on the observation that even many staged images later use green Assault Troopers.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

The number "1" corresponding to the Mighty Foot has been removed from the HUD.

Stage 4

The entire line corresponding to the Expander has been removed from the HUD.

The developers posted a collection of screenshots to the Internet on November 19, 1995. Because these screenshots were directly posted to the Internet without the delays associated with printing or publishing, these screenshots are likely representative of the build at that time.

In 2021, screenshots were leaked from a similar build that, based on the placement of the Access Cards in the HUD, must have come after the November 19 build. Individuals with access to development files have stated that these screenshots also came from a November build. In addition, the leak included map schematics for an earlier version of Red Light District, which individuals with privileged access to development files had dated to two weeks older than the other leaked screenshots. Because those map schematics can be matched to many of the screenshots below, these are all expected to come from an early November build. Moreover, the numbers in the HUD use a "stubby" font in many of these screenshots, indicating they must have come before the November 19 build.

Early November 1995

November 19, 1995

A promotional slideshow released through 3D Realms' website on November 19, 1995 included a small collection of frequently asked questions (FAQs) with answers from developer George Broussard.

Common Duke Nukem 3D questions: Q: When will it be out? A: The offical responce is "When it's ready". We are trying for a pre-XMAS release, but will hold the game to early January if we don't think it's ready to go out. We will NOT rush the game to make some lame deadline. We are getting more and more optomistic as the days go by though. Q: What are the system requirements? A: 486 DX2/66 (local bus recommended). The basic answer is "What are you happy playing on?" We are "happy" with the above system. 8 MEGS of ram and CD will be required. Also, a CD-ROM is required for the registered version. Q: What weapons are there? A: Still tweaking and working on them, but the basic list is: Kick, High speed pistol, shotgun, 3 barrel chain gun, rocket launcher, pipe bomb with remote detonator, shrink ray (really fun), microwave assault cannon, wall mounted laser trip bomb (plant and forget). Obviously some will be held back from the shareware version. Which ones? Dunno yet. Q: How many levels are there and how big is the shareware version? A: The shareware version will be 5 levels and a secret level. 4 of the levels are going to be really fun for network play and the other two fairly large, but slanted towards single play more. The full game will have another 21 levels or so, depending on time. At least 18 though. The shareware version will likely be between 4 and 5 megs in download size. Q: Can I be a beta tester? A: No. Sorry, but we have all we need at the moment. We'll post a message if we need any more. Please let us get back to work :) 

Late November 1995

The following is an early version of "Stalker," the music track that accompanies Hollywood Holocaust in the final game. Jackson posted the track to his personal YouTube channel, noting that the only significant differences from the final version can be heard at the 1:52 mark and 2:00 mark. Although Jackson dated the track to 1995, he did not provide enough information to approximate a more precise date. The earliest screenshots of Hollywood Holocaust can be roughly dated to sometime in the summer of 1995, and because Hollywood Holocaust had not yet been split-off from E1L6 of LameDuke as of the May 9 demo reel, the earliest possible timing is May 1995.

Duke Nukem 3D v0.99 Beta was compiled on January 4, 1996. The image below, which first appears on a screen following the defeat of the Battlelord in beta version 0.99, is from a staging map that was separate from the most recent version of Dark Side. This is known because the stripes on the building are red, which would date it before the August screenshots, yet this image also contains the newer character sprites for Duke, which would date it after the August screenshots.

The prototype, which is publicly available to download, contains notable differences in the layouts on all maps of L.A. Meltdown, as well as a different roster of levels for the other two episodes. However, only L.A. Meltdown is accessible as part of the leaked shareware.

Shareware v1.0 was compiled on January 29, 1996. It contains minor differences in weapon behavior, enemy health, and sprite graphics from the final version. Only L.A. Meltdown was finished and available to play.

Shareware v1.1 was compiled on February 20, 1996. This version is nearly identical to the final, except that the Freezethrower or Devastator had not yet been introduced. Also, a few sprites, such as switches and rocket projectiles, had not yet been updated.

This animated sprite likely precedes the implementation of the Overlord's hitscan attack, which is known to have been implemented in the non-shareware version of the Computer Gaming World Demo of the game that was compiled on March 4.

The Computer Gaming World Demo, long known by the nickname "Shareware v1.1+" in online forums, was compiled on March 4, 1996. At this stage of development:

There is not enough information to date this image. Because it depicts multiple Battlelord Sentries, it likely came after the earlier screenshots where only one is depicted on Occupied Territory, thus providing a lower bound for the date range. However, the screenshot appears to be from a very early version of Overlord, a level that dates back to LameDuke, so there is not enough information to determine an upper bound.

The following collection of map schematics were shared online by an individual with privileged access to development files, attempting to resolve a decades-old question about the authorship of certain maps in the game.

The first four images provide crucial information about a longstanding controversy over the authorship of Pigsty. It has long been known that Richard "Levelord" Gray contributed to several levels from The Birth, but for reasons that are unclear, he was never credited for his work on any of them (see The Birth#Disputed authorship for more information). The most hotly debated of these was Pigsty, which Gray cited as his favorite level and "99.44%" his own work. However, the map was ultimately credited solely to Randy Pitchford, whose initials appear on the map in the final version.

The map blueprints below seem to argue strongly in Gray's favor. Although it is unknown whether any of these iterations were modifications by Pitchford in which he failed to remove Gray's signature, the last two versions clearly show that negligible changes were made when Gray's signature ("SUYT" in the top-right corner) was removed from the map.

The following maps also contain Gray's signature:

The following maps all come from early builds of Hotel Hell. The person who shared these images noted that, except for the comparison images from LameDuke and the commercial version, none of these builds contains the swimming pool.

The following two maps are signed "LEE" and are believed to have been authored by soundtrack composer Lee Jackson. One individual with privileged access to development files stated that most of the level is "around average mid-90s usermap quality." Because the rest of the map is comparatively more "abstract," the individual is unsure whether the realistic mail truck that appears at the beginning of the level was designed by the same author or possibly by a different developer on the team. These maps correspond to two iterations of Going Postal, which was further developed by Allen Blum and packaged with the Atomic Edition.

See Also: Duke Nukem 3D v1.2

April 4, 1996

Jackson released the following unused track titled "233.778C" that was dated April 4, 1996 and intended to accompany Fahrenheit.

Version 1.2

Individuals with privileged access to development files have shared the following information about the contents of version 1.2:

Version 1.2+

See also