DooM 4 Gameplay Trailer Impressions!

I have been a fan of Doom for a very long time. I'm not sure exactly when, but at least since 2002 if not before. Yes, I know that was nearly ten years after its original release, but the computers we had at my home growing up weren't very powerful. Even at that time, it blew me away. I love this game and I love this franchise. Its without a doubt my favorite shooter and my second favorite video game of all time.

For those who don't yet know, a nearly nine minute long segment of gameplay was shown at E3 this year. It actually took me a little bit of reading about E3 before I even found this out. Bethesda has made such big headlines with Fallout 4 that Doom seems to almost be an afterthought. One I found out about it, though, I was interested and more than just a little excited. Doom 4 was announced on my birthday quite a long while ago, and having only gotten a teaser last year since then, its fair to say that there were a lot of questions and a lot of expectations going into it. So what are my thoughts on it? (I'm assuming you want to know the answer to that since you're reading this) Well, truth be told, I'm optimistic, but very cautiously so, and I'll explain why.

The reactions overall to Doom 4 seem to be relatively muted. There have of course been a few people trying to stir up controversy over the violence levels, but overall these don't seem to be getting very much attention at this point. Given the content of games these days, the ultra violence of demons and zombies getting ripped to shreds just doesn't generate the same kind of controversy that it did even fifteen years ago. Its coverage in most gaming articles and personalities that I follow seem to be pleased about the levels of violence and gore, but otherwise have little to say about it. Fans of the franchise have voiced various opinions, both positive and negative. It has drawn comparison to Sergeant Mark IV's “Brutal Doom” mod, which is both potentially good and bad, but we'll get into that later on.

Remember the first time you saw one of these guys?

First off, lets start with some of the things I liked about what I saw. For starters, the enemy design looks pretty good to me. The imps are back to being their old brown, spiny selves flinging fireballs and generally dying under a steady stream of shotgun fire while the revenant and cacodemon are both colored a little more like their original game counterparts. I actually really liked Doom 3, but I did feel as though the monsters all looked a little too similar. The design here seems to be a step in the right direction.

I was also generally pleased with the way the player character moves around the environment. Climbing up onto obstacles looks both easy and fun without becoming too much of a distraction. The game's weapons also seem to be about what you'd expect from a Doom game. The shotgun and super shotgun are back with a predictable presence as well as an old (and mislabeled) favorite, the chaingun. I will say that I was slightly disappointed with the Plasma Rifle. The original Doom's plasma rifle had that peculiar but awesome sound effect to go along with its unique design while the Doom 3 iteration is one of my favorite video game weapons of all time. Something about its design, sound and coloring just really work for me. This version looks almost like a Nerf version of the Doom 3 one, and the sound is so stock-standard that its practically forgettable.

The game environments themselves look great, although I am slightly concerned that they might not really be all that unique. The environments and textures that I saw populating the backgrounds in the gameplay trailer look pretty standard. Only the familiar UAC logo and throwback door opening sound remind you that you're looking at a Doom game.

Programs like DoomBuilder keep a two decade old game fresh.

Another huge positive, though not shown in the footage, is that the game looks to ship with a robust and easy to use map editor. This is a wonderful sign. The original game remains popular to this day due to the ease and accessibility of creating mods. The speech given when SnapMap was introduced shows that the developer is aware of this fact. While I am excited about the editor, I also hope that in addition to SnapMap that Id will choose to follow in the tracks of Skyrim and lead and release their more advanced development tools as well. Being able to edit assets, add monsters and textures and other such things would be a step over the top and a potentially more worthy successor to the franchise title.

Ok, so now we'll get into some of my concerns. The game that we have seen so far has drawn many comparisons to the 'Brutal Doom' mod, which I mentioned previously. For those who don't know, Brutal Doom is a modification for the original game that adds huge amounts of blood and gore as well as melee combat and the ability to literally rip enemies apart with your bare hands. It also changes the pace of the game, making it much more difficult but justifying the incredibly amped up firepower. Its not surprising to see this comparison given that multiple former and current Id employees have mentioned Brutal Doom on their twitter feeds. The melee combat seen in the demo also obviously lends credence to the comparison.

The problem I have with this is that, while Brutal Doom is itself an incredibly well made mod and quite fun to play, its not what I think of when I think of playing Doom. Brutal Doom is a great experience in itself, but it isn't pure Doom. Melee combat as it was shown looks out of place to me. For some reason it doesn't seem right to me to see these ultra powerful demons getting their jaws ripped off and their legs kicked apart by a mere human. It always strikes me as strange in video games when a punch is more powerful than a single handgun round. As if any of us would rather get shot in the head with a pistol rather than punched. Of course one might argue that a human capable of carrying nine weapons at a time would be strong enough to do this, but that begs the obvious question of why a human capable of carrying nine weapons at a time would need to use his hands. It works in Brutal Doom, but I'm actually worried that it doesn't really work here. Doom and Doom 3 had their moments of hand to hand ripping and tearing, but the temporary effects of the berzerk pack were used as an explanation. It was never an integral part of the game. In fact, in the original Doom, even the highly powered berzerk fists were not as useful as any of the weapons including the chainsaw.

This brings me to my other concern, that being the story and overall feel of the game. Its been said numerous times over the seven or eight years since Doom 4's announcement that all it needs to be successful is a shotgun and some demons to shoot with said shotgun. While that's true to an extent, I think its over simplifying a little bit. Id has never been known for their storytelling, but that hasn't ever stopped them from putting a story into the game anyway, and honestly, I like it that way. The story never gets in the way of the game, but its still there anyway for those of us who like having some reason for shooting the things we're shooting at. On a more significant level, I think the presence of even a flimsy and predictable story lends a certain quality to the game. Even for those who skip the cutscenes and don't care about the story can at least appreciate the environments and areas. If the game is just a collection of arenas for shooting monsters, it will be forgotten quickly.

As an aside, I was also disappointed to find out that it's once again an origin story set on Mars. Doom 3 already told us that story, and it did so very well. I can understand not wanting to set the game on Earth, as I think was the original plan, but why not choose something else? I know that reboots and throwbacks are what's been going on recently, but a title like Doom deserves better. It should also be called Doom 4. Or something other than just 'Doom'.

Ten points if you can name the level pictured here.

The previous concern brings me to another one: Level design. Once again, fans of the game love to say that its all about the shooting, but honestly that isn't true. It wasn't true even for the original game. Of course the frenetic action is probably the most important aspect of the original game, but it was far from the only aspect of it. Doom's levels were a remarkable conflagration of open areas and tight corridors, with each of the monsters placed so as to maximize the effect and challenge of the encounter. More and more I have come to appreciate just how incredible well the nine levels of Knee Deep in the Dead are constructed. John Romero took full advantage of the Doom engine's capabilities, making light and dark areas and open and closed spaces a joy to explore. The presence of secrets and bonus areas only made the experience all the more enjoyable and memorable. I'm pretty sure I know the layout of most of Knee Deep in the Dead's levels better than I do my workplace. If all the focus of the new game is on combat and weapons, it'll lack that remarkable quality that made the original so enduring.

Speaking of John Romero, its significant (to me, at least), that the last surviving member of the team t

hat founded Id Software and created Doom is no longer with the company. (John Romero being the first to leave, John Carmack being the last). Of course John Carmack's tech is what powers the game, and I am aware that he wouldn't have any significant effect on level design even if he were still there. All the same, its sort of like having your favorite book series being turned over to a different author. It might still be good, but you can't help but realized that its in new hands. In addition, there have been some rather troubling statements from Id's parent company, Zenimax. For example, there was a

Please, Id.  Please to justice to this franchise.

rumor a while back that Zenimax wants Doom 4 to sell as many copies as Bethesda's Skyrim. Seriously? I know Doom is a well known franchise, but Skyrim could arguably be the most significant game to be released in the last decade. To put an order like this on the developer means that they must do everything they can to give the game mass appeal, and this worries me. The best games are made by people who are just creating something that they would want to play. That's what gives the best games their unique souls, what separates a game like Skyrim or the original Doom from the cookie cutter committee-driven games that populate the market today. The presence of things like Brutal Doom elements make me worry that the developers are trying to give us what they think is going to be popular, not necessarily what will be true to the heart of the franchise.

Now of course all these concerns have to be tempered a little bit. What we've seen so far may not even be actual gameplay. To me its difficult to tell if this is just a pre-rendered video. Even if it isn't, what we saw is not likely an actual level in the game. It seems to have been designed specifically to show off the weapons, enemies and graphics. The story, level designs and more nuanced elements like surprise encounters and ammunition distribution were not shown. Furthermore, the game is still nearly a year away, which means that there's plenty of work to be done on it. There are enough good things to be seen in the gameplay trailer to believe that Doom 4 could be a great game and a worthy entry into one of gaming's most legendary franchises. For the time being, we'll just have to wait and see.