Doom 4 multiplayer outsourced and what that could mean

Things don’t sound good at Doom 4 developer Id Software. It’s no secret a bunch of the team has left for Oculus and that the latest Doom game has had a rough development. But an employee, writing on the website Glassdoor, makes it sound like the multiplayer beta you’ll get access to for buying Wolfenstein might not even be made by Id themselves.

Glassdoor doesn’t seem to verify if people actually work at the company they write about, but gaming insider Superannutation said he believes it’s a legitimate employee account. Furthermore, the employees complaints match with a Kotaku report about Doom 4’s development. The game has been restarted several times and reportedly doesn’t even resemble a somewhat working game.

What’s worse is that the multiplayer is being outsourced to developers outside of Id Software. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be bad, but many outsourced games have a tendency to turn out not that good. What it shows, though, is that Id Software has a lack of employees to get it done in time. It’s almost desperate.

For a game that’s been around for a long time, that’s not something you want to hear. Game development is costly, so that means Id Software believes in it enough to keep spending money on it. Maybe it’s the core of the game, or maybe it’s just the name alone. It’s probably tough to live up to the reputation Doom has in the game industry. It’s arguably the game that all shooters have been inspired by.

Id Software might be in a really bad position if people end up not liking the game. Rage wasn’t exactly well received and it’s unlikely they have any other games in development. It’s already worrying that we’ve seen so little of the game and even with a beta announcement, all we got was a logo.

Game development is difficult. Games fail all the time, we just don’t typically hear about it. We could just be hearing the bad stories. Doom 4 could be great, or it could not. We don’t have that long before we’ll know.