Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Hell Yeah: Doom 4 Info-Trickle

By Alec Meer on February 13th, 2009 at 11:48 am.

Official logo. No, really.

Looks like id’s usually impenetrable marketing fortress had a crack in it after all. Actor Brad Hawkins chatted to GGL Wire about the motion capture work in the FPS sequel, which was enough to reveal that the game would feature large-ish squads of human fighters working together – a mixture of soldiers and civilians. Does this mean D4 will chronicle an invasion of Earth by Hell-sent legions? Who knows, but it was a snatch of gossip too far for Doom devs id, who summarily had the interview removed. It’s even gone from Google’s cache now too. Once again, the forces of light have won out against the terrible evil of people getting excited about an upcoming videogame. Hooray for truth, justice and corporate paranoia!


Slashdot, fortunately, retains a pertinent quote:

“‘[Filmmaker Mark Bristol] was very specific on the civilians having a certain personality and the military characters having a separate one as well. The body language of the civilians is less, well, “trained.” They carry their guns in a looser fashion and are a little sloppier when they run, a little more freestyle. The military characters are sharp as razors, with very swift moves, exact hand positioning and can turn on a dime.’”

Whether it’s set on Earth, another spacebase or the Rumford branch of Morrison’s, it’s a strong hint that Doom 3′s sometimes tepid corridor-pounding and jack-in-the-box monsters might be left behind for something a little more ambitious and open. Let’s hope id stop being so precious soon, the big sillies.

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48 Comments »

  1. Irish Al says:

    I am interested in this product or service.

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  2. Katsumoto (jvgp100) says:

    Maybe some sort of blending of GRAW and Serious Sam? With Demons? I’d buy that.

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  3. ChaosSmurf says:

    I just hope this means they have a very nice reveal prepared for us all that they don’t want us to know anything about before hand. If they just come out and say “Yeah it’s on Earth” in 3 months now, I’ll be a bit disappointed.

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  4. The PR firewall strikes again!!

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  5. Bobsy says:

    ZOMG RPS GAVE DOOM 4 9/10 GAYFAGFAG THIS REVIEW IS SHIT HOW CN YOU GUYS BE REVIEWERS

    etc.

    Weird resurgance in FPSs recently? I guess consoles have caught the bug that we had about 10 years ago.

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  6. Larington says:

    Hmm, I would be most pleased if a shooter developer tried revisiting the Republic Commando idea of having squad mates that can be ordered about, most pleased indeed.

    Yet somehow, I doubt thats gonna happen, you’ll probably just get ‘scenes’ with people running up to barricades, getting killed and then replaced with more people who run up to said barricades.

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  7. Larington says:

    Disclaimer moment: Yes, I know theres plenty of games that allow you, but I specifically refer to the straight forward way it was done in Republic commando, rather than the overblown over complicated method chosen in certain ‘serious tactical shooters’.

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  8. Gabanski83 says:

    I’d like a level set in the pit of Hell that is Huddersfield’s branch of Tesco’s, please.

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  9. Jante says:

    Am I the only one that actually liked Doom 3? Most of it anyway.

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  10. Irish Al says:

    @Jante

    I think lots of people like it. I played it, and the add-on expansion, through again recently. It’s still a rock-hard old school PC shooter with exemplary level and sound design, if a bit repetitive after a while.

    I have to say I am lost as to how anyone would play it with a console pad though. You need to be able to spin and snap off accurate shotgun blasts so quickly.

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  11. Ziv says:

    hi,
    say, story wise – is there a connection between the doom games? or they are all the same no story shoot-em-all games?

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  12. dhex says:

    there is a story connection: hell is hellish.

    an earth under seige game could be a great slice of zombie/demon apocalypse.

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  13. ChaosSmurf says:

    I liked Doom 3 as much as I liked FEAR – quite a bit, and they have similar problems. I never finished D3 though… Does it degrade much?

    … whoa.

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  14. Pags says:

    Romford would be an ideal setting for Hell. Either there or Stoke-on-Trent.

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  15. AbyssUK says:

    I want lots of rabbit heads on sticks please.

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  16. Cooper says:

    I’m still upset that id didn’t see the worth in a Quake4 expansion – I much preferred that to Doom3. If you’re gonna have a corridor blaster, might as well have it on a biomechanical alien planet…

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  17. Zed says:

    So doesn’t anybody have a copy of the interview?
    Weep weep weep.

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  18. JonFitt says:

    Gone are the days when if you wanted to know about an id game you could just ask John Romero and he’d go on for ages spouting pie-in-the-sky ideas they were working on which would never end up happening.

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  19. Sid Clayman says:

    Setting sci-fi shooters on earth is overrated

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  20. PHeMoX says:

    Making a Half-life 2 kind of game out of the Doom franchise would be a sever mistake though. That would be far too romantic for a normally quite gory and fast paced action game.

    In other words, a horror theme doesn’t normally work very well without those claustrophobic corridors making confrontations inevitable.

    I personally think they could have done a lot more interesting things with the Doom3 premises of a base on Mars. Think vehicles, outdoor combat in zero gravity, a bit more freedom but with plenty of corridor-room-corridor action.

    I’m pretty sure the F.E.A.R 2 design team must have had the same dilemma; how can you make a game with more open space exciting enough that it’s still able to scare? I’m thinking the answer is that you can’t.

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  21. PHeMoX says:

    “Setting sci-fi shooters on earth is overrated”

    Hell yes, unless it’s going to be like a Mad Max-style Earth makeover setting, I don’t see why a somewhat realistic Earth setting for sci-fi games would be interesting at all.

    The only game so far that did not miserably fail at this was Crysis.

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  22. phuzz says:

    @PHeMoX, Half Life 1 and 2 (& episodes etc.) are set on earth don’t forget…
    (apart from the bits in xen which I didn’t mind too much myself but which everyone else loves to hate)

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  23. Tworak says:

    GIGAtextures confirmed with a 64-bit brown palette.

    DAY ONE.
    <3 id

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  24. sbs says:

    Maybe this one gave away way too much:
    “[...]But I do know we are dealing with a post war/post apocalyptic event that civilians and military are fighting for their survival.”
    I mean, who would have thought???!!

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  25. QuantumGravitas says:

    Shows how low Id’s stock has fallen in recent times – not one tiny squeak of excitement can I muster for this game.

    “Meh”, indeed.

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  26. Jante says:

    @ PHeMoX
    They are already working on vehicular post-apocalyptic madness with Rage, so I’d like to see them go in a different direction with the next Doom game.

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  27. Tei says:

    I feel like Id Software is a bit like Muhammad Ali [1] or other world heavyweight boxing champion.

    Will you pick a fight with Id Software of his engines? no. His the glorys days of Id Sofware on the past? yes. Valve software is doing more, and much more interesting latelly. But for some reason Id Software is still the king, the world heavyweight boxing champion. But is old, a old boxer.

    [1]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali

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  28. pilou says:

    I would love that this game emulates all good stuff of Doom 2 and seeing as how facts indicate that it will be hell on earth all again id seems to think the same way.

    I liked Doom 3 a bit, but Doom 2 was much better.

    Hopefully Doom 4 will have:

    - Doom 2 amazing action and level design

    - But hopefully the game won’t have traditional levels, but a more sandbox approach like Rage

    - It could be a bit like Resident Evil in some sections with lots of suspenseful action against zombies. Or maybe more like L4D

    - id tech 5 engine should be a Crysis killer on this game. I want hyper detailed characters, big open enviroments, amazing and realistic animation and good shadowing like in D3

    - bring back the Alien Mastermind!

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  29. Nutterguy says:

    Google isn’t the only search engine with a cache

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  30. Nutterguy says:

    More link doesn’t work though… silly…

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  31. Deuteronomy says:

    I loved Doom 3. In my opinion it was far, far better at what it was trying to do than Bioshock or Fear.

    All I have to say is the Carmack will return. And rain down unholy fire upon the doubters.

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  32. Moonracer says:

    I’ve recently come to connect “horror” games to mean complicated/awkward controls (the flashlight in Doom 3 is a perfect example). Sometimes that works, other times I’m more frustrated than scared.

    While friendly NPCs and everything sounds nice I’d rather the Doom series continue with what made it good in the beginning. Fast, pure action with minimal thought and totally abstract maps. I also want bunny heads on spikes!

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  33. Cabbs says:

    Alternating gameplay would be nice.

    one part doom/quake you-vs-them-floods-of-zombies survival shooter, then squad sections in open areas, against numbers you couldnt possibly tackle on your own.

    or something.

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  34. JKjoker says:

    i just hope they discovered duct tape already (and notice there are led flashlights that last a hundred+ hours without changing batteries instead of just a few seconds)

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  35. mrt181 says:

    i wish for evil corporate bosses and banksters that sell out humanity to the the forces of hell and you are the one who repays them.

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  36. JKjoker says:

    mrt181 : something like Doom meets Postal starring Michael Moore with extra poop flinging ?
    actually… i would play that game

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  37. rocketman71 says:

    There wasn’t anything remotely interesting in that article.

    id has done nothing good, gameplay-wise, since Q3. Let’s hope D4 or Rage break that, it’s been 10 years already!.

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  38. Bill says:

    I hate squadmates. They interfere with my one true joy: running around killing stuff.

    @JKjoker – weird, ain’t it, how a game that lets you carry around hundreds of pounds of weapons + ammo won’t let you have a decent flashlight…

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  39. clive dunn says:

    To Hell, Hull and Halifax.

    Not only is this a great name for a game it is an actual saying in the north. However, Hell is meant to be a distortion of Elland, but if you’ve ever been to Elland, you can see why it morphed into hell.

    Btw, Halifax Tescos – the one in town – is unbeatable in terms of sheer awfulness.

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  40. JKjoker says:

    bill: Half life 2 episode 2 actually spits you in the face about it, they recognized the flashlight was a problem so they removed from the HUV suit energy pool (now having the flashlight on wont screw around with your ability to breath underwater, awesome!!(wtf! :D)) made it last a lot longer and it recharges entirely like in 2 seconds … but it still runs out!! WTH save me those damn 2 seconds and make it run forever!

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  41. Smurfy says:

    I haven’t seen a “full-scale alien invasion” game before. Like a Half-Life game set in the Seven Hour War. That would be so bitchin’.

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  42. Subsonic says:

    Here you go:

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  43. Subsonic says:

    The Doom 4 mo-cap interview: First production shots revealed!

    http://www.amio.cn/forum/showthread.php?p=17759

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  44. Rice says:

    @Subsonic – Thanks!

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  45. SofS says:

    I haven’t played a Doom game for ages. It occurs to me that Doom 4 being in the style of MDK could actually be really fun. (Alternately, I could just track down MDK again.)

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  46. Biz says:

    i wish we got more fast insanely intense first person shooters like doom 1 and 2.

    all the ones today are so slow. the fastest FPS coming out is like quake live… and that’s pretty much a reboot and multiplayer only.

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