Rely Reacts: DOOM 4

DOOM 4‘s existence is not to be debated. We know it’s coming, and we know that DOOM 4 will be something created with a considerable amount of effort by developer id Software. Its original design was scrapped and remade, and now we know that a beta of DOOM 4 will be attached to the latest Wolfenstein. But what about what we want and hope from the fourth main entry in the DOOM series? Find out in Rely Reacts to DOOM 4.

CJ Melendez

I’m not a big fan of the DOOM series. When the 3rd game released on Xbox, I bought it and really enjoyed it. I appreciated its stunning graphics, dark atmosphere, and scary monsters, but upon replaying it on Xbox 360, I just couldn’t get into it. The series of monster closets and samey-looking metal hallways, the overbearing waves of enemies, and the repetitiveness of it all really sullied the experience. For me, it did not age well and I got bored very quickly. It didn’t help that the story was very poor and uninteresting.

For DOOM 4, I’d really like to see id create something more unique than a monster-closet space station. Dead Space 2 was a fairly linear monster closet affair, but it had a lot of finesse and care. DOOM 4 needs to give us a decent story, exciting and varied environments, and some horrifying enemies. The prospect of seeing Rage‘s AI and impressive animations applied to demons excites me already. I don’t want id to reinvent the wheel, but a fresh take on what DOOM is, while observing other horror games on the market, could give us something amazing.

Casper Bronmans

I haven’t actually played any shooters since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 because I don’t like how the genre has shifted its focus to cinematic set-pieces strung together via a linear path. I am a big fan of exploration and freedom in first-person shooters, which is why I love the old DOOM games so much. DOOM 3 was still very nice, but I would appreciate more hellish environments with more secrets, collectibles and hidden paths spread throughout. I’d also like it if they designed more interesting enemies; the original demons from the first two games had iconic designs, whereas I feel the designs of DOOM 3 were a tad generic and often too difficult to make out.

I also hope they maintain some of the features that made the third entry more entertaining, like the spawn locations of monsters, the satisfying weapons and the gory visuals. The most important part, however, is that I hope DOOM 4 will continue the franchise’s legacy of pushing its genre forward instead of wallowing in old ideas. We’ve seen this happen many times before, such as with the Call of Duty example I mentioned earlier, and I’d hate to see this new game leave a blemish on the Doom name.

Taylor Dean

DOOM 3 was one of my favorite games growing up and I remember so much of it freaking me out and weirding me out. It was extremely scary, tense, and a wondrously gory visual. However, upon coming back to it after growing up some, I just can’t enjoy it anymore. For DOOM 4 to be the epic monster it should, I feel a less linear progression system could help a lot. I’m a huge fan of backtracking in horror games when they do it right, and the thought of a first-person DOOM that progresses like a MetroidVania game would be very interesting.

Naturally, we need a wide variety of awesome guns, lots of bullets, and hellishly invigorating monster designs. Let’s have creatures that charge us, hide from us, climb on the walls and ceilings, ghosts that phase through objects, and monsters that spawn other monsters. I want DOOM 4 to be one of the best bullet-hell games I’ve ever played (get it?). In terms of a story, I can settle for something not filled with twists and convoluted science to explain the happenings in the game. As long there’s an end goal with a rewarding finale, I could care less about the story.

Kyle Campbell

Honestly, I have a hard time feeling anything about DOOM 4 other than total indifference. It’s been over a decade since I enjoyed a game by id software, that game being Quake 3. Now, Quake 3 was an incredible game, but since then id has released one disappointment after the other. DOOM 3 was a colossal failure that captured none of the essence that made the original DOOM games great, while simultaneously completely failing as a horror game, a competent shooter, and as a compelling narrative. It was just a boring, plodding mess of a game that wore out every ounce of my patience by the end. Its greatest achievement being it served as a reminder of how good the gameplay in the original DOOM games were, and not in any way the developers intended either.

So yeah, I really have nothing more to say than that. I don’t have much confidence in id Software to make a great game after how mediocre DOOM 3 and RAGE were. Perhaps they can turn things around for DOOM 4, but they’ve given us little reason to think they have.

Zack Furniss

DOOM 3 received a lot of hate upon release, but I was one of the jerks who liked it. Though the much-maligned flashlight mechanics didn’t really make any goddamned sense, they were an effective tension enhancer. There were definitely too many audio-logs, and the combat quickly became repetitive. In the eventual sequel I’d love to see more varied locations, less of a focus on overlong expository journals, and a bit more of an arcadey feel. BUT WHAT DO I KNOW? I’m not the Doomguy. Only Doomguy is the Doomguy.

Tobiichi Karlsson

My favorite FPS game of all time is DOOM 3, and the original DOOM games don’t fall far behind on that list. I’ve known about the upcoming DOOM for a few good years and have been awaiting the first details on it, and here we are. DOOM is having a beta coming with Wolfenstein: The New Order.

This suggests that DOOM will have a bigger focus on multiplayer this time, which will make the detractors of DOOM 3 and its small multiplayer mode a bit happier, I think. As for what I want from DOOM, I’m accepting whatever Id Software is tossing at me, as long as it’s an FPS with shotguns and demons in a sci-fi environment, they can’t disappoint me. They haven’t yet, so bring it on Id, whatever you do, you won’t Hurt Me Plenty.