Before id Software’s DOOM, there was Doom 4, a significantly different title that was more cinematic and closer to something like Call of Duty. However, the developer felt like it had moved away from what made Doom special.
Now Bethesda VP of marketing and PR Pete Hines has discussed the cancellation as well. Speaking to OXM (via Games Radar), Hines said the cancellation didn’t make the company happy but it was needed.
“With Doom it was a tipping point that we reached where we looked at it and said, ‘This game is not hitting the marks it needs to hit.’ And it wasn’t just Bethesda, it was id coming to us and saying, ‘It’s not that it’s not a good game or an okay game, but it’s just not Doom. It’s veered from the things that we think Doom should be about.’
“And again, it’s not like we were happy about it! We essentially cancelled a game. That’s what we did. We cancelled a thing that people had spent a long time working on and we’d spent a lot of money to get to that point and then we cancelled it and basically started over.”
It wasn’t an easy decision by Bethesda. “We are still a company. We do have to pay salaries and keep the lights on and it’s not like we take these things lightly or easily. Games are hard to make and sometimes things happen.”
However, it resulted in the current DOOM which Hines described as “fast and visceral and different – unique in a way that this genre, quite frankly, could use.”
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