Id Software's Marty Stratton was lead developer on games such as Quake Live and Rage before taking the helm of the Doom reboot.

To say that Doom was the game that started the modern first-person shooter craze would probably be a little too generous (Wolfenstein pre-dates it by a year or so) but there's no denying that it's the one that brought it to the masses.



The 1993 original was nothing short of revolutionary, allowing players to explore a 3D environment, battling hordes of merciless monsters with an arsenal of outlandish weapons and laying the foundations for the hundreds of run and gun shoot 'em ups that followed.



Doom spawned a slew of sequels and spin-offs, but since the release of Doom 3 back in 2004, the series has been dormant.



Twelve years is a long time in the games industry, meaning an entire generation of gamers may have no frame of reference when it comes to one of the most iconic and influential titles of all time.



That's all set to change on May 13, when Doom, the first attempt to reboot the franchise, comes out on PC, Xbox One and PS4.

The latest Doom game has been in development for the best part of a decade, and has had a relatively rocky road to release, including a back to the drawing board moment in 2013.

Stuff caught up with the game's executive producer, id Software's Marty Stratton, in a New Zealand exclusive interview for all the details on what to expect from one of the year's most highly anticipated titles:

Familiar enemies from earlier Doom games make a welcome return, along with a few new additions to keep you on your toes.

Talk us through the decision to call this game Doom rather than Doom 4

There's a tone and style and feel that I think Doom represents. For us, bringing this to market now, 12 years after Doom 3, almost 25 years after the original, it just feels right to call it Doom because of how it feels relative to the original and also how we wanted a new audience of gamers to move forward.

If you've never played a Doom game before, this should be what you identify with as Doom.

Graphics and game design have come a long way since the 1993 original, but the basics remain the same: Shoot everything and try not to die.

A lot of people who grew up in the 90s will be very familiar with Doom but there's an entire generation out there who might not know anything about it. How much of a consideration was that when you were developing the game?

It was definitely a consideration. With a franchise like Doom, you want to always bring new people into that and you want to find ways to appeal to players that haven't experienced it.

The approach was really getting back to what was the essence of Doom? What was the DNA of Doom? It's awesome guns, amazing demons, but the movement is a really big factor.



It's not just that it's fast. The things you have to worry about is either demons with melee abilities or demons that shoot projectiles, things that move through space at you, whether it's rockets from a revenant or plasma from a hellified soldier.



You have to dodge and weave your way through their attacks, which is obviously very different from the way a lot of modern shooters play. Then there's things like no reloading, no health regeneration, picking up health and ammo and armour. So we built these together into a modern experience.



Not only did it work, not only did it feel like Doom, but it really felt fresh relative to what else is out there in the current FPS space. So people who have been around Doom for years will feel the familiarity. There's a lot of winks and nods for people who'll feel right at home playing this game.



But at the same time we've added new things like weapon modifications, upgrades, currencies, suit capabilities and perks. All of which fit in the canon of Doom.



The game has been optimised for PC, with uncapped framerates etc. How does it run on consoles in comparison?

The scenery might be breathtaking but you'll be moving through it too fast to stop to enjoy it.

We think it looks amazing on PS4 and Xbox One. We've spent a lot of development time making sure that the framerate is what you'd expect at 60fps and the resolution is fantastic.

I think most gamers would look at [console vs PC] and not really be able to tell the difference. Until you get into some of the ultra settings - we let PC users with high-end cards really push the limit - but it's tough to tell the difference when they're at the base setting.

Framerates are so important to the feel of the game. I give all credit to our tech team for really coming though and getting that to where we said it would be.

Subtle lighting effects add to Doom's dark and forboding atmosphere.

Doom has always been more about action than story. What kind of narrative is there in the single player campaign?

You hit the nail on the head, for sure and we stay true to that. Story isn't first and foremost. As players and developers we know that people want to kill demons, blow stuff up and have an amazing time.

That said, we try to give players an understanding of the lore and the world. What's happening and what has happened. We have echos that you can find throughout the environment. We have a codex that's built by collecting datalogs.



​There's lots of things working together. You'll have brief interactions with characters but there's no major, long cutscenes. We try to keep it all there for the player that wants it but it's not essential. We definitely do enough to keep you engaged in the overall arc of the story.



I'm really excited for people to dig in. There's more there than there's ever been in a Doom game. One thing I really like is that we've taken a path with the UAC as a whole and made them pretty weird, and I say that in the best sense of weird.



The UAC has always been this blank canvas. Doom 3 did a bit more with it but we've taken the UAC and made it this science meets religion meets technology kind of cult. It's not heavy-handed but it puts into context why they were experimenting on demons and messing around with hell.

If you open the depths of hell, don't be surprised if you encounter a few demons.

Does the main character (Doomguy) get a name this time?

No. I'm going to keep this kind of cryptic - he's referred to as a number of different things but not a proper name.

Doom has always been a brutal game but it looks like you've upped the ante this time in terms of blood and guts. How far did you push it and where do you draw the line?

The attention to detail that has gone into some of the character designs is just one of the reasons Doom has been in production for the best part of a decade.

We pushed it pretty hard. We can do a lot with technology and visual effects and it's a part of the DNA of Doom to have that.

There's a gratuitous aspect to it but that's not the only reason we do it. There are significant gameplay reasons for the violence and the impact.

When you fire a gun at a demon in Doom and it hits them there's an impact that sells a lot of things. From the power of the gun to the amount of damage you've done to the enemy. It manifests itself through cool animations, chunks of their body taken out, blood spraying and that combination of things tells you a lot as a player.



We've also developed the Glory Kills contextual melee system that kicks in when you've done a certain amount of damage you can approach an enemy from any direction and kill them in all sorts of fantastic ways, like ripping arms off and hitting them across the head with it.



It's all about selling this power fantasy, ratcheting up the blood and gore but doing it in a way that's fun and humourous. You tend to laugh because of how over the top it is.

Classic weapons such as the super shotgun make a welcome return, and it wouldn't be Doom without the BFG.

Was there ever any consideration of toning things down to make it more accessible to younger gamers?

Not really. When you play a Doom game you come to it with certain expectations.

We approached it with a sense of fun in mind. You're killing demons, you're killing a skeleton with rocket launchers on his shoulders and a jetpack, you're killing pinkie demons. They're really bizarre, they have a ton of character in and of themselves but it's not like you're running through the game killing thousands of humans.



We always tried to keep a flair to it where you're playing with a smile on your face. If we ever got to a point where it was making you wince or if it felt like horror, we were like "that's the wrong tone, that's not fun, that's too serious."



Some games do that and there's nothing wrong with that but that's not we were trying to do. We tried to keep it so over the top that you're laughing all the way through.

What's more terrifying than a murderous skeleton? A murderous skeleton with rocket launchers on its shoulders.

The Doom beta has been incredibly popular. What did you learn from it and what changes have you made as a result?

The beta was awesome. From our perspective it went really well. We had millions of players and everything stood up.

One of the things in beta is just making sure your back end systems can withstand that level of load. We didn't have any server outages and there were no major issues.



We got a lot of great feedback. We're still tweaking some weapon balances and that's probably the biggest change. At the point of open beta you're pretty well on track towards shipping.



We made a ton of changes between closed beta and open but the launch of the game will be the start of things. The closing of one chapter but the start of the rest of the book. We're teeing up a ton of stuff from SnapMap and paid DLC and a lot of other things that are still in development.

The SnapMap level editor suite allows you to create your own unique maps and tweak almost ever gameplay condition.

SnapMap looks like a really interesting feature - at what stage of development did you decide to include it?

When we reset things in 2013 it was in that initial pitch, going back to what Doom meant to people. It was important in the popularisation of multiplayer and the popularisation of modding.

With the advancement in modding tools and technology we felt like there was the opportunity to do something new and broaden the audience and put the power of modding and creativity in the hands of every player.

I was messing around with Garageband on the iPad when we were in the early stages of incubation and then there's things like Minecraft and Little Big Planet that have made players expect a level of ease of getting into these kind of things.

It's ambitious and we've been uncompromising with it. SnapMap is one of those things that could have fallen off the table because of time or resources but we stuck with it.

The benefit is that every player, whether they want to create something or not, has this constant stream of new content. If you want to play co-op, or something with adjusted movement speed, or even something that doesn't involve shooting, there's a hub for it.

Our biggest hope for it is that people do things we haven't even anticipated.

Were there any other features you'd liked to have included but weren't able to?

There's always little things that don't quite work as well as you'd hoped, maybe a level or two but I'm just happy that campaign, SnapMap and multiplayer are all very robust. In and of themselves you could play them as long as most individual games.

I'm very happy with how it turned out. There's nothing major that I don't think we hit.

Will we have to wait another 12 years for the next Doom game?

Ha ha! I don't know. When you work on something like this you definitely want it to have legs. I hope people play this, finish it and think "I can't wait to play the next one".

From a lore perspective we've left a lot of questions unanswered, hopefully stuff that generates lots of conversation and players' interpretation of things.

I hope we're onto something with this and we don't go another 12 years but there's a lot of people involved in those decisions.

Doom is released for PC, Xbox One and PS4 on May 13.

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