Have you played Doom before? Now that was certainly a First Person Shooter (FPS) that kicked things off where multiplayer gaming over a network is concerned. It looks like all of the party poppers will have to be put on hold with the latest news that Doom 4 will not be realized for the moment for one simple reason: it is too close to Call of Duty, which might not lead to a warm reception among gamers.
id Software is the legendary developer that brought us such great memories in the world of FPS gaming, such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Doom II, as well as the Quake series. Their work on the upcoming Doom game, known as Doom 4, is often overlapped with their development of Rage. Well, it looked like Doom 4 did not see the light at the end of the day and another Doom title was released instead -- being simply known as Doom (2016). There was not much information back then when shockwaves were sent out concerning Doom 4’s cancellation, at least until now.
Video game documentary series No Clip seem to have uncovered the Revenants in the closet considering the shelving of Doom 4 which you can watch in the YouTube video below. If you are not the patient kind, then quickly fast forward to 12:22 in order to hear what is possibly the main reason that Doom 4 was cancelled.
According to designer Kevin Cloud, who happened to helm quite a fair number of the direction decisions in the never-released Doom 4, he did admit that Doom 4 was starting to shape up to be a Call of Duty game. Cloud explained, "We had explored a direction and got to a certain point where we felt like this wasn't really capturing what we felt like was going to be a strong Doom and what the fans would want from us."
This is what I personally like about id Software -- they do not want to release something that is ordinary or run of the mill, even if it is going to milk them plenty of money anyway by virtue of the brand name alone. Rather, id Software titles had always been about innovation, be it in terms of graphical achievements or groundbreaking technological advancements in the realm of FPS (such as being able to look 360-degrees when Quake was released). All FPS titles today were inspired by Doom, no doubt about it, and to have a Doom title that was too similar to a franchise like Call of Duty? That seemed kind of ironic, don’t you think so?
Doom 4 producer Marty Stratton opened up about the game more, "[It was] a lot more cinematic, a lot more story to it. There were a lot more characters around you that you were with throughout the course of the gameplay. It was totally new. You were taking cover and popping up and shooting enemies. The demons looked a lot different. It took a while to get into actually fighting demons. You were kind of fighting a lot more zombie-type creatures early in the game."
I suppose the best way to sum things up would be in the words of creative director Hugo Martin, "Doom is about one guy involved in big things and Doom 4 was more about the big things."
