id Software has provided some fresh details about its decision to reboot Doom 4 after an earlier version of the project failed to meet expectations. Speaking to IGN at QuakeCon, studio director and co-founder Tim Willits explained that the game, which was officially confirmed in 2008, simply lacked a strong identity.
“It wasn’t one thing,” he said. “It wasn’t like the art was bad, or the programming was bad. Every game has a soul. Every game has a spirit. When you played Rage, you got the spirit. And [Doom] did not have the spirit, it did not have the soul, it didn’t have a personality. It had a bit of schizophrenia, a little bit of an identity crisis. It didn’t have the passion and soul of what an id game is. Everyone knows the feeling of Doom, but it’s very hard to articulate.”
The rebooted game, which is now expected to be released on PC and next-gen consoles, is currently the only major project in development at id Software, but in an interview with Joystiq, Willits wouldn’t rule out the possibility of making a sequel to 2011’s post-apocalyptic shooter Rage.
"I'm proud of what we did, I'm proud of the universe that we built, the franchise is not dead," he said. "We're not doing anything immediately with it, but when I designed the universe, I designed it in such a way that it would be easy to step back into. I'm still proud that we did something that was different, it wasn't like the games that we've done in the past."
