As id Software sits on the verge of releasing DOOM: The Dark Ages to the general public, one of the artists working at the studio has published a host of screenshots on his own website that might give us a hint to what the original concept for DOOM 4: Hell on Earth would have looked like. Along with those, the artist – Thao Le – has also uploaded screenshots that might indicate an early attempt at reimagining the original Quake using modern technology.
According to Le’s website, the screenshots feature scenes and models that that were used directly in id Software’s in-house idTech 5 engine, and also doesn’t include finishing touches that you would typically see in a game, like radiosity rendering. According to Le, several of the scenes depicted in the screenshots were created by making use of a combination of existing assets from DOOM as well as original assets. The overall theme for these, as described by Le, is a re-imagined environment from Quake with modern touches.
“It has two parts,” explains Le on the website. “The first one is stone and old machinery ‘melted’ into each other in the weird way that is not familiar with human logic. Gears, chains are moving to create dynamic [environment] and can be used as game play. The second part [environment] has just stones with very mystery structures in which stones are dynamically float or animated that causes the environments keeps changing during the combat.”
When it comes to DOOM 4: Hell on Earth, Le has described the overarching themes of his work on the game’s environments as having to created a city with the key words being “abandoned” and “destruction”. The environments in these screenshots, which you can check out here, were created using idTech 4 that once again doesn’t feature finishing touches like PBR or Substance rendering.
According to the resume on his website, Le has been working in the gaming industry since 2001, when he joined Lucas Arts and worked on titles like Gladius and Star Fighter 2. In 2004, Le moved to EA Los Angeles, where he worked on titles like Medal of Honor, a cancelled project dubbed Tiberium, a Lord of the Rings game, and Golden Eye.
Since 2008, however, Le has been working with id Software. After having worked as an artist on the cancelled DOOM 4: Hell on Earth, he also worked on other shooters by the studio, including both Rage titles, DOOM (2016), and most recently, Quake Champions. Interestingly, Le hasn’t listed more recent games like DOOM Eternal or the upcoming DOOM: The Dark Ages as projects he has worked on.
In the past, various developers from id Software have revealed quite a few details about DOOM 4. Celebrating the release of DOOM (2016), designer Kevin Cloud spoke about the cancelled project, saying that it felt more like a story-based game and less like one that could belong in the DOOM series. “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.”
More recently, footage from the cancelled title has been released for the sake of preservation courtesy of id Software and documentary-maker Noclip.
