The idea behind Duke Nukem: Hollywood Holocaust Rethinked was to imagine what the iconic first level of Duke Nukem 3D might look like if the developers at the time had access to modern technology. The brief was to have the classic Duke Nukem enemies refreshed with modern techniques and designs. The monsters had to retain enough of the feel of the original sprites to be instantly recognizable, but were not required to be carbon copies of the 1996 sprites.