Even though the 2016 version of Doom is phenomenal, what most people may not realize is that there was another Doom game in development called appropriately enough, Doom 4. Announced shortly after the release of Doom 3, the game was quietly cancelled, and no one knows why; until now that is.
Speaking to Danny O’ Dwyer on his show Noclip, id Software designer Kevin Cloud, who worked on the game and made many high level decisions about the game, explained what happened to the game and why it ultimately didn’t pan out. “We explored a direction and got to a certain point and felt like this really wasn’t capturing what we felt like was going to be a strong Doom and what the fans would want from it,”, he said.
The game was set to have more of an emphasis on connecting to the game’s world and characters, but according to producer Marty Stratton, it didn’t work out that way, saying that it was more “Call of Doom”, referencing Activsion’s Call of Duty series. “It was much closer to something like that type of game,” he said. “A lot more cinematic; a lot more story to it. A lot more characters around you that you were with throughout the course of the game. Definitely a different setting–it took place on Earth.” Ultimately, the game didn’t work out though, and it was canceled later because, as studio director Tim Willits said in 2014, the game, “didn’t have passion or soul.”
You can see the complete interview, including talking about the game’s high production values, the influence of the 1997 movie Contact had on the game, and more in the video below. Personally, as great of an idea all of this sounded, I’m glad that id decided to scrap it and go with the version of Doom that we ultimately got, which is available now for the PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
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