In a lot of ways, the new Doom reboot represents a return to form. Doom 3 tried its hand at a more traditional survival-horror experience and ultimately came up short — for fans, that meant that Id Software had not only abandoned the fast-paced gunplay of the first two games, but released a sub-par horror game as well.
Clearly, Id Software is taking those criticisms to heart: the new Doom is all about speed and killing things in the most explosive way possible. Much like the classic games, Doom encourages players to never stop moving and never stop killing — but while that sounds like a great idea on paper, a game needs more than fancy guns to keep players interested over the course of a 12-hour campaign.
Enter the upgrade system: for the first time in the series, players will be able to upgrade both their character and their weaponry. It's a big change, especially for a series like Doom, and some fans are understandably nervous about the new systems.
Thankfully, Id Software has finally gotten around to explaining how the system works — and for the most part, the upgrade system sounds like it could be enough to keep the gameplay flow interesting without interfering with Doom's main mechanics:
Basically, Doom's upgrades will fall into one of two main categories: weapon mods and suit upgrades.
Weapon mods, for the most part, will provide your different firearms with new alternate fire methods: for instance, the shotgun can be modded to fire out a single explosive shell when the alternate fire is activated. From what Id Software has mentioned in the past, most (if not all) guns will feature some sort of alternate fire, and may even feature more than one upgrade tree.
On the other hand, suit upgrades change how your character interacts with the world. As the video mentions, this could be increased traversal and combat speed, but that's just the beginning — we wouldn't be surprised to see some serious damage buffs or damage resistance upgrades tucked away in Doom's single-player campaign.
The final piece of the puzzle are the collectibles: different runes and mods will unlock new abilities for players to tinker around with, but there's no telling how these different items will be integrated into the campaign. The video seems to imply that the early hours of Doom will be spent unlocking and upgrading your weaponry, before dumping players into the open sandbox during the latter half of the game.
Hopefully, the upgrades and mods will give Doom a little bit of extra personality. The demons and guns are great, but modern FPS fans want something to work toward over the course of a game's single-player modes — with any luck, that's exactly what the upgrade system will do.
Doom is set to launch on May 13.
