By Jim Rossignol on April 19th, 2011 at 11:28 am.
That’s what id’s design director Matt Hooper told has told Eurogamer.
“They’re [the Doom 4 team] going in their own direction,” Hooper added. “They’re doing something Doom fans will be happy with. I try to support them as much as possible. It’s a good thing. We’re separated enough to be able to go our own ways, but still connected where we can help facilitate both those directions. It is distinct enough. It would be dangerous… We don’t want to make a re-skinned Doom [with Rage] and then Doom 4 be a re-skinned Rage. That would be bad.”
My speculatometer points to Doom 4 (or 400M, as we’re calling it) being an attempt to recapture the demonic themes and pacey blasting of the original games. Odds on for an unveiling at QuakeCon this summer, and a late-2012 release. But I guess we’ll see…
I really hope that means that Doom 4 will have the large spanning labyrinths of the original games. I’m really tired of linear FPS.
http://evansheline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/fps_design.jpg
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Wheee – now I can browse through another cache of web content (a hobby of mine)! I’ve found something I like already: http://evansheline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/overkill.jpg
Downloading now…
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@Diebroken: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=isle+of+dogs+traffic+light+sculpture
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@Jonathan: Thanks, now I can throw away the tineye search results and find a proper source… argh! Must get back to work, stop wasting time…
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Nope. It will be another variation on dark spooky hallways.
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At least I don’t get lost in these shiny new manshoots.
Using noclip to find the exit of a level made me feel dirty :(
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Too Right TheSquarePear, challenging games are bad. I look forward to the day when games will ship with a “Sod it, just show me a cutscene of the last 30 seconds and then uninstall the game” button in the start menu.
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Now that you mention it, it has been an insanely long time since we had a proper mazey-corridor shooter, hasn’t it?
I doubt Doom 4 is going to be the game to bring it back, but I’m excited for it anyway. There’s something intangible that’s special about id’s games, even Doom 3 in my (controversial) opinion, and I’m always excited to play a new one.
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Honestly, I could gladly lose the ‘getting lost’ and ‘confusing backtracking’ parts of Dooms level design, but the actual style and flow of combat needs to return. There’s some modern Doom mods that actually do this pretty well.
Legacy of Suffering – http://www.brdoom.com/mtm/los/ – and Ultimate Torment & Torture http://www.realm667.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=289
Those two both have pretty linear designs, but it really works in the games favour. Combat is still largely freeform, giving you a ton of enemies, a ton of guns and a large arena to fight them in.
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Bioshock was relatively open.
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I’d like a reskin for Rage.
Because so far, textures there look ugly and cross platfrom.
Tu dum tish!.
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I thought the textures looked really quite nice. You can see them in the large format pictures posted here in the last two days.
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I want to know if it’s Hell on Earth. That’s what I’ve been expecting since Doom 3 and given his concerns regarding the similarity of the titles, the likelihood of it being set on Earth in open-ish spaces is certainly there.
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An interview with a mo-cap actor revealed a bit about that:
http://www.amio.cn/forum/showthread.php?p=17759
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Ah, thank you, good Sir. That certainly points to an Earth setting and even makes it sound like they’ve taken some inspiration from HL2.
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400M!
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Pronounced phoom?
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FOOOOOM!
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As soon as I saw this in my RSS i was giggling to my self as I prepared to write FOOOOOM! in blistering capital letters, only to see you rapscallions have beaten me to it.
Ah, well
FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
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http://goo.gl/J1fiw
VOOM!
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It should clearly be:
DOOOOM
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I’m gonna be calling it “DfourM”.
If that’s okay with everyone else.
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I speculate that a shotgun will take part in some way!
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Better have a double-barreled shotgun in it from the start this time.
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I preferred the pump action in the original, the double barrelled was too slow and the spread was ridiculous meaning you had to get right up close if you wanted to do more than tickle the monsters.
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Although not the best shotgun for long range, the firing/reload sounds of the double-barreled shotgun always deliver! *BOOM thack clack clack, BOOM…* :D
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Agree with jon_hill987. The double-barreled shotgun sounded lovely, but the single-barreled pump action was basically perfect.
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I can tell who hasn’t played on Ultra Violence or Nightmare in here
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@Commissar: those are the only two levels of skill worth playing in DOOM ;)
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But what does a Doom fan want from the franchise in 2012?
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+ Fast action gameplay that does not resemble military shooters. And by fast I mean FAST.
+ Large variety of weapons
+ Large variety of monsters
+ Semi open levels with interesting design (not too linear please, as close to Doom II as we can get)
+ some of the old “hellish” level ambience
+ modern graphics (don´t have to ask for this one ^^)
+ maybe coop multiplayer
+ good deathmatch maps
… more :-)
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They better have some proper daemons this time, not those gray maggots. And maybe a secret Wolf-3d level, how cool would that be.
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All I want in 4oom is to walk across a blood flooded floor, open a door, see a room full of demons, reload my shotgun and close the door behind me.
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An updated Final Doom
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I predict:
- keycard hunts
- Monster closets
- at least 3 instances where when you grab the item from the middle of an empty room, a million monsters appear and attack.
Yay?
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Running at incredible speeds of up to FIFTY SCALE MILES per hour.
Seriously, that’s the main difference. The reason the Spiderdemon was so dangerous was that you couldn’t circlestrafe him. Too many hit points, and that damn machine gun.
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If 4OOM does not have the music that was in the first level of the original, I’ll be a sad panda.
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a remake of the original music by a proper band would be awesome. E1M1 from the original rocks, evidence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16HUhRYhd34
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X21mJh6j9i4
Never say no to panda.
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@Sudogamer
Many of the songs in the Doom and Doom 2 were actually covers. Can’t remember which songs/bands, except that Alice in Chains definitely featured somewhere. I’m sure google can help.
EDIT: ding
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Not quite covers, just heavily inspired by or outright copies of certain sections from metal songs.
http://www.doomworld.com/linguica/doomcovers/
Some of these are questionable to my ears, but E3M1, Map 18, and Map 25 are the most obvious ones. Any Doom fan should at least give the compilation mp3 a listen for trivia’s sake.
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Wait so people are raging because 4oom is not reskinned?
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400M 3 Did nothing for me tbh, I loved the originals, but number 3 was just too dark to enjoy, and too annoying with not enough ammo for the big guns (I mean I don’t want to piss about with a cruddy MG the whole game, I want teh Plasma Rifle Moar)
Also the codes for those chests were stupid; I didn’t want to minimize my game, to go to some stupid website to get the code.
And the monsters spawning behind you every 5 minutes got boring, fast.
400M Will be the same pile of trash as Doom 3 – My bet. But, you never know, I mean, look at that prey article the other day! I am actually half interested in it now.
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>Also the codes for those chests were stupid; I didn’t want to minimize my game, to go to some stupid website to get the code.
If you was actually paying attention, all the codes were in the journals spread around the levels.
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Hmm, I think not, I distincly remember one which told you to visit “Martian Buddy.com” website, I don’t think that chest was important though, and I don’t know how many times they told you to do it, Maybe it was only once, but by that stage I was quite over the whole; pull lever/push button, monster behind you, shoot him, another behind you, shoot him, another one behi…. you get the idea.
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It’ll be unveiled at Quakecon, when the entire team jump out of a cupboard…
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Oh, i don’t know, Carmack also said Doom 4 had a more “cinematographic” focus. Which sounds like Doom 3 again. We will see.
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I’d be really surprised if Doom 4 went back to what made the first two great. The only places you can get that nowadays are from Croteam (Serious Sam) and the Painkiller franchise (not People Can Fly, per se, as Bulletstorm is much, much closer to today’s linear cutscenefests). It just isn’t done, certainly not by id.
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I’ve been thinking about this one. Seriously, what can they do with the basic concept of Doom that wouldn’t feel tired and repetitive? And if they go for the heavy story cinematic approach, it will most likely not feel like Doom anymore. Maybe “Hell on earth” is the only way to go, with demon-infested cityscapes and shit. It would be about as fresh as my underwear, but if Duke Nukem and Bulletstorm can find an audience…
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I don’t think there’s a solution here because fans on either side of the fence cannot be catered for all at the same time. Personally I’d even rather have a pure remake of Hell on Earth and Final Doom, than a continuation of the series. Something, is obvious, I won’t probably ever have.
In any case, I sit with those who view Doom as a labyrinthian corridor shooter and that always should stay that way. There’s plenty of games to choose from that went in different ways. I’d rather see Doom remain faithful to that style and new IPs produced if there is a need for Id to go in different ways.
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I hope there will be a good deathmatch game in there.
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Serious Sam is “the modern doom”, Doom 4 just have to follow what Serious Sam did but with an hellish theme, it’s not that hard.
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Please, don´t! While Serious Sam got the shooty bits right, I found the level designs to be rather horrendous, with every combat being a giant arena with a flat floor.
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Ugh no, Serious Sam games are mediocre in comparison!
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Serious sam 1′s gameplay IS doom, extremely light plot, big levels, the player is a walking armory, lots of secrets, lots of monsters, funky music, only objective is survive and move on to the next level
i guess painkiller fits too but the levels were much smaller
i agree the serious sam setting and monster design needs a lot of work tho
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I don’t mind Serious Sam now and then but there really is a lot more to Doom level design than arenas. Doom had a few open areas with monsters spawning in, but it was rare. A big part of the Doom’s balance and design was using cover and fighting in tight spaces.
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Serious Sam, while good, really isn’t Doom. Doom is about close-to-mid range combat with slow enemies that can deal massive damage with a single hit, but all but a few of them have slow-moving projectiles that a skilled player can weave between.
Serious Sam is about being rushed down by waves of fast enemies and plinked away at by distant hitscan bastards with not much in the middle. There’s a lot of backpedalling there, which Doom never had.
And don’t say it’s nostalgia talking. I’ve still got Doom 2 (with a ton of mods) on my hard-drive, and recently replayed Serious Sam HD.
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Out of curiosity, what Doom II mods would you recommend, Dominic?
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Serious Sam is Smash TV, not Doom
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“what Doom II mods would you recommend?”
For a lot of the best Doom mods (it has Doom 1 stuff as well) there’s the 10 years of Doom article here: http://www.doomworld.com/10years/
There’s also the Cacowards that point out several of the best maps of each subsequent year: http://www.doomworld.com/cacowards/
As the “10 years…” article starts from the beginning some of the early stuff is dated in comparison to what’s made nowadays, but these provide a pretty good list.
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Yeah, the Cacowards are pretty much a go-to if you want a quick summary of the best Doom stuff out there.
Personal favourites include (as linked above) Legacy of Suffering, Ultimate Torment & Torture, Stronghold, Zen Dynamics, Cold As Hell and Unloved. Most of those are pretty heavy mods, changing most elements of the game but keeping the core Doom ‘flavour’. It’s really unmistakable – aside from the Raven spinoffs (Heretic, Hexen, etc) nothing else quite has the same feel.
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But will we be able to talk to the monsters?
I want to ask the imps why they took to hiding in cupboards in Doom 3*.
*yes I know there were also a significant number of cupboard monsters in the first two games.
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i wonder what the Doom4 devs think Doom was all about, i think Doom3′s 2 biggest mistakes were trying to add a “plot”/”character background”/”audio logs” and the desire to use the game as a techdemo (masturbating with the lighting implementation caused that flashlight BS, at least Rage is the techdemo this time), the other mistakes just follow those two
oh, and i hope they have someone to slap the lead designer around if he tries something like the flashlight again, they really needed someone to keep him in check back then
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I think I would literally sell my own kidneys (yes, both of them) to see Doom 4 recapturing the feel of the series before 3.
I do kind of doubt this though, primarily because games these days apparently have to make sense. Terrible state of affairs, that.
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I wish we knew more about the gameplay, but the technology sounds exciting. According to Carmack, it’ll have about 3 times the fidelity of Rage (per frame) because it’s running at half the framerate.
Mix that with some old-school demon killin’ and you’ve got a recipe for something awesome.
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RIP AND TEAR
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