If this year's Game Awards is any indication, Doom reboot is easily one of the top games for 2016. The game is a finalist and this has been underscored by its commercial success since its release last May.
Now, the game's fans most assuredly know that another Doom game called Doom 4 had been announced back in 2008. This game did not see the light of day and the developers working on it are now offering insights why it was unceremoniously stopped on its tracks.
Doomed 4
In an interview with NoClip, Kevin Cloud stated that the scope and nature of this game's story is not aligned with the Doom game philosophy. Cloud is a software designer at id Software, Doom's developer. Several high-level creative decisions for the game are said to have largely emanated from his desk.
"We explored a direction and got to a certain point and felt like this really wasn't capturing what we felt like was going to be a strong Doom and what the fans would want from it," Cloud said.
Element Of Connection
The idea is that Doom 4 will feature a stronger element of connection between players and Doom inhabitants mainly because of the wider breadth of the storyline. This particular aspect required the development of more characters beside the player and the enemy. It takes place on Earth and for this reason it involved more characters throughout the narrative whose primary function does not involve getting killed by the player.
In addition, Doom 4 will reportedly entail more scripted sequences, better narrative and nicer cinematic. Overall, Cloud touts its similarities with Call of Duty, calling Doom 4 at one point Call of Doom.
Reimagining The Doom Game
It appears that Doom 4 is more like a refreshed interpretation of Doom or a reimagination of the title even. It would have been awesome if only for the fact that the quality would have been better while the game itself assumed more dimension.
The developers are saying that, upon evaluation, they felt that Doom 4 did not reflect Doom, especially when it comes to the players and fans' expectations. This line was best articulated by Hugo Martin, the game's creative director.
"To tell a bigger story, it scarified the doom slayer. Doom is about one guy involved in big things," Martin said. "Doom 4 was about the big things."
That, of course, is one way of phrasing the decision. Another perspective could be that the scope, story and quality would entail massive resources and the developers are not quite ready to risk that much. It is not yet clear whether the features and elements destined for Doom 4 will get ported in the next iterations of Doom.
