no secret , but Bethesda and id Software have, until now, been silent about what went wrong behind the scenes. At Quake-Con 2013, IGN spoke with id Software’s studio director, Tim Willits, and Bethesda VP of marketing Pete Hines to find out what led to Doom’s delay, changes, and future. So what went wrong?

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“ I don’t want anybody to look at id’s next project and have this reaction that it’s still stuck in the 90s.

“It wasn’t one thing,” Willits tells IGN. “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.”When asked what Doom 4 was prior to its reset (and likely transition to next-gen consoles), Hines says bluntly, “Not Doom 4.”Neither Bethesda nor id could recognize Doom in the game they were making, so they agreed to start over on the next Doom -- a game which Willits emphasizes was never formally announced , but revealed in job listings.Willits smiles and dances around any questions regarding the future of “the new project” -- he never says Doom. “We focused everybody. All hands on deck.” It is the only major project at id Software today. Willits says the team’s “cut distractions out,” and focusing hard on the next thing. “If you have everyone marching to the same drummer, you can get places.”Presently, both id and Bethesda assure that the new game is well on its way to realizing a more cohesive, careful vision.

Mitch Dyer is an Associate Editor at IGN. He’s also quite Canadian. Read his ramblings on Twitter and follow him on IGN