Only a few short days ago, Id Software set the Internet on fire. It was the first time in over a decade that fans had gotten to see brand-new Doom footage — and while it was only a few seconds long, it was more than enough to get fans excited. After the disappointment of Doom 3, fans are hoping for something that brings the franchise back into the limelight... but, as it turns out, Doom 4 could have been a completely different game.
Yes, fans have only seen a few meager seconds of footage, but it's clear that Id Software is at least trying to capture the essence of the older games. That wasn't always the case: new footage of a cancelled Doom 4 prototype made its way online earlier today, and it paints a vastly different picture.
When you think of Doom, a few things should immediately come to mind: Hellfire, demons, the BFG and tons of gore. Judging by the leaked Doom 4 footage (via IGN), that would have been swapped out for a standard post-apocalyptic future, a band of resistance fighters and a whole lot of brown:
The above footage just doesn't look like Doom, plain and simple. Personal opinions aside, nothing about the clip screams Doom: there are no demons, no giant weaponry and no action. While there are hints of supernatural forces peppered throughout the footage, there's very little here that hasn't been done in other, similar games.
In fact, the Doom 4 footage looks strikingly similar to another Id Software project, Rage. It appears to be running on the same engine, and several of the assets look extremely familiar. Whether or not Doom 4 was meant to bear so many similarities to Id's previous game is unclear — but the resemblance is uncanny.
Speaking with IGN, Id Software Studio Director Tim Willits claimed that Doom 4 wasn't rebooted because of any one problem, but several overaching issues:
"It wasn't like the art was bad, or the programming was bad. Every game has a soul. Every game has a spirit. When you played Rage, you got the spirit. And [Doom] did not have the spirit, it did not have the soul, it didn't have a personality."
It's easy to assume that the cancelled Doom 4 project would have been the most radical redesign of the franchise ever. While it's impossible to tell if the game would have been any good, it's still nice to see that Id Software is tapping into the older games for inspiration. After all, there's nothing quite like Doom!
The full gameplay reveal of Doom is set to debut on June 14.
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