EDITORIAL: DOOM 4, Does Anyone Really Care?

Yesterday, Id announced they were working on DOOM 4. The question now remains, does anyone care?

There is no denying Id Software was a cornerstone to video game history when they birthed both Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM on MS-DOS. Gamers in 1992 and 1993 will never forget that double whammy of awesomeness which consumed massive amounts of time and energy; frightening us in some cases.

DOOM II was a great expansion to the franchise and made 1994 another great year to be running DOS 6.21 and managing your extended memory pools to get the most of your 640k base memory. Then, in 2004 we received DOOM III and it was met with critical success again, perhaps because it was DOOM with a graphic re-vamp?

The DOOM franchise has become known for its almost pitch black gaming experience with ground breaking graphics (you just can’t see them) and plot line that goes above and beyond: kill aliens again and again. Perhaps the reason DOOM III was so successful was because gamers like myself wanted to relive the experiences of the early 90’s and be that kid again.

Quickly I learned that nostalgia can be a bitch, much like when I went back and relived the experience of Thundercats on the cartoon network. The show was weak, so very weak, with little plot and little creative spirit which was used to launch such shows as Voltron, He-Man, The Transformers and so many other classics. Perhaps my little mind just didn’t care that Lion-O and his gang had very little substance to them or perhaps I was just too naive to notice.

I found DOOM III to be much like Thundercats, it lacked any real substance compared to titles arriving around the same period; games that separated themselves from the standard FPS by creating intricate storylines, excellent weapons, fantastic multiplayer options and replay value. DOOM III was a shot back to 1993 but with new fancy graphics and the ability to do things we just couldn’t pull off in 1993 in terms of physics, lighting and sound.

I was reminded of the phrase, “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” DOOM III was like a delorean retrofitted from the future but created in 1985. It was the same thing recreated by people with the talent to create highly innovative graphic engine but lacking a storyline development team.

The DOOM franchise is one of the most recognizable and important in gaming history, having been named “one of the ten most influential games of the decade” by PC Gamer and “the #1 game of all time” by GameSpy. DOOM 4 will join the award-winning series which has consistently topped sales charts throughout the world. (idsoftware.com)

Is it possible for DOOM 4 to step off the momentum of the DOOM franchise and stand alone as a game which breaks the mold of the FPS genre once again? Can it be the next Half-Life of the video game industry or blow us away like BioShock in both graphics, story and overall excitement? Can they build something with the multiplayer experiences of Halo 3, Unreal Tournament or Team Fortress 2?

Or, is DOOM 4 going to be yet another remake of the same stuff and, if so, that begs the question, “does anyone really care?”