There’s very few game developers that have the luxury of making a game, realizing it isn’t good enough, and scrapping it to start all over again. But id Software is one of those developers, and that’s exactly what they have done with Doom 4.
The 4th game in the Doom series was originally announced back in 2009. It was (and still is) expected to use the id Tech 5 engine and see a release on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. However, in 2011 theproject was restarted, and id Software’s studio director Tim Willits has now explained why during QuakeCon 2013.
When they looked at the state of Doom 4 in 2011, when the art was in place and most of the programming done, the team realized it just wasn’t Doom. By that Willits means it, “did not have the spirit, it did not have the soul, it didn’t have a personality.” There was nothing wrong with any specific aspect of the game, it just didn’t feel like a Doom game and id weren’t prepared to release it in that state.
It’s nice to know that id Software is willing and able to look at a game, realize it isn’t good enough, and go back to the drawing board. If they had released it anyway, the Doom name would have still ensured millions of sales, but the name would have quite probably been tarnished. Now, we can hopefully expect a much better version, and probably a much larger game as it’s unlikely they’d throw away the art and level design from those first two years of development.
Right now, Doom 4 is the only major project id Software is working on, but as ever there’s no set release date. It will be ready when it’s ready, and hopefully it will be a game we enjoy playing over and over again just like the original.
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