After suddenly scrapping the Doom 4 project, the game's publisher Bethesda has finally revealed the reasons behind canceling the fourth installment of this highly popular series.
In an interview to Xbox:The Official Magazine Pete Hines, Bethseda's VP of Marketing, shared that the first person shooter was "not hitting the marks it needs to hit."
The publisher themselves were not satisfied with the title and felt that the game was "veering away" from what it was intended to do. Hines also disclosed that even though Bethseda was not very happy to scrap the game, it was essential to do so as Doom 4 did not match up to its vision.
HIies went on to share that it was not a very pleasant feeling to scrap something towards which so much effort, time and money had been put into. He also revealed how tough it can be to develop a game, yet the publisher was not losing heart over the fact that Doom 4 had been canceled.
Hines also said that it wasn't just the company who criticized the game. id Software, the game's developer, also voiced its concern.
"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," said Kevin Cloud id Software designer in December 2016 when asked about Doom 4's cancelation.
What Is Doom?
For the unfamiliar, Doom is a first player shooter where the various levels range from the Union Aerospace Corporation, to the different stages of Hell. Many old enemies like the Revenant, Pinky, Mancubus and Cyberdemon made a comeback in Doom reboot.
The game even has a level named Ultra-Nightmare, which has permadeath. This means that if you die in the level, your previously saved data will be erased permanently and you will have to start the game from scratch.
Doom reboot's multi-player mode offered several variants to it such as team death match, Soul Harvest, freeze tag, warpath, domination, clan era and more.
Doom 4 does not hold the notorious distinction of being the first game that Bethesda has canceled. In his interview, Hines also mentioned that other titles like Prey 2 had been canceled and that Bethseda was working towards developing a revamped version of Prey, teaming up with Arkane Studios for the purpose.
The decision to shelve Doom 4 seemed to be a sensible one and justified when seen from the publisher's perspective.
