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Before Development Restarted, ‘Doom 4’ Lacked A “Soul”

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Sadly, this year’s QuakeCon came and went without an update on what’s going on with Doom 4. Developer id Software and their publishing partner Bethesda Softworks have been largely silent about the game outside of confirming that development restarted back in 2011, a tough decision that was made because the game lacked a soul.

IGN spoke with id Software’s studio director, Tim Willits, and Bethesda VP of marketing Pete Hines at QuakeCon last week about why they decided to start fresh with the game. Find out why after the jump.

“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 had a bit of schizophrenia, a little bit of an identity crisis. It didn’t have the passion and soul of what an id game is. Everyone knows the feeling of Doom, but it’s very hard to articulate.” Willits told IGN.

It sounds like the game felt a bit generic, lacking that distinct Doom flavor, so they decided to scrap it and start fresh.

“If it was like the quintessential, ‘yup, that’s Doom 4,’ then we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” said Hines. “But, it was something that we looked at and the id guys looked at and said, look, it’s not even that something is necessarily bad. But is it good enough? You can make a game and say, ‘that’s not a bad game, but it’s not as good as an Elder Scrolls game should be,’ and there’s a difference…it’s not great. It’s not amazing. It’s not what people have waited all this time for. It needs to be like ‘this was totally worth the wait.’ And I think what the guys at id are working on is…they’re pushing the boundaries and challenging themselves. I don’t want anybody to look at id’s next project and have this reaction that it’s still stuck in the 90s.”

I’m glad they aren’t rushing the game. I’m a fan of the series, so I’d love to see something from it sooner rather than later, but if it’s going to be the latter, at least Doom 4 will benefit from a team that’s dedicated to making it the Doom sequel we all want it to be.

[IGN via Destructoid]

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Gamer, writer, terrible dancer, longtime toast enthusiast. Legend has it Adam was born with a controller in one hand and the Kraken's left eye in the other. Legends are often wrong.

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One of Clive Barker’s Final Convention Appearances Will Be at New Jersey’s Monster Mania in August

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Clive Barker

We told you earlier this month that horror legend Clive Barker is leaving the convention scene behind to focus entirely on his writing, with various upcoming projects in the works.

A series of final appearances from Barker will begin at Days of the Dead Chicago this month, and we’ve learned Barker will also be coming to Monster Mania in New Jersey.

Clive Barker will be signing at Monster Mania 59 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which runs from August 2 – August 4, 2024. Stay tuned for more info from the convention.

Barker’s official statement earlier this month explained, “… it’s time to focus entirely on writing. I’m not stopping public events because I’ve lost delight in meeting you all over the years. I’m as passionate as ever about sharing my imagination with readers and moviegoers around the world. In the very room where I’m writing these words, I have the manuscripts for a very large number of projects (Thirty-one of them), some very close to completion, others still telling themselves. There are some wild projects in this collection of works, whether close to finished or done. There are also stories that you all knew I would be finishing.”

“Abarat IV and V are amongst the books at my feet,” he continued. “So is the Third and final book of The Art and the sequel to The Thief of Always. There are also return visits to characters and mythologies you may have thought I would never return to.

“I hope I am still able to surprise you in the decades ahead.”

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