John Carmack Sheds Some Light On Doom 4

John Carmack of id Software has shed some early light on Doom 4, saying the game will shift away from the horror stylings of Doom 3 to become more of a pure action title.

Carmack said the game would be "significantly different" in a recent interview with Shacknews, admitting that complaints about the "contrived nature of monsters hiding in a closet" in Doom 3 as well as the game's extreme darkness were "completely valid." As a result, Doom 4 will be more akin to Doom 2 than to its direct predecessor.

"One of the things that I come to in my limited contributions to the whole Doom 4 design process is, it has to still be you beating down the bad guys," Carmack said. "It has to be a triumph of heavy weaponry over demonic forces in some way, and you have to be blowing demons all to hell around you, and it's a more positive side of things there."

"It's not that you're running around frightened down to your last bullet," he continued, explaining how the game will be more about kicking ass than merely surviving. "There will occasionally be that, but it should be much more of you winning, because that was always the point in Doom - you are the hero, and you are winning. You're going to beat back all the hordes of Hell using all the tools at your disposal."

In fact, Carmack revealed that complaints about Doom 3 were one of the reasons for the cancellation of Darkness, a rather ironically titled survival horror game that was killed after 18 months of work. Describing the game as built around dimly-lit levels and monster closets, he said the decision was made to shut down production when they realized, "We would have been keeping Doom 3's faults." The focus on action in Doom 4 is inherently better for gameplay, he explained, saying, "You get to punctuate [the gameplay of standard action titles] a lot more with triumphs and successes, and you just don't get to do that very much in survival horror. You know, you want to say, 'I'm victorious,' not, 'I'm not dead.' It's just a fundamentally more rewarding genre to be in."

Very few changes to the id Tech 5 engine are planned between Rage, the project id revealed at E3, and Doom 4; instead, Carmack said there will be a shorter development period for the game with a focus on creating a solid gameplay experience and more robust multiplayer options than those in Doom 3. Doom 4 is expected to be developed for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, and typically for id, nobody is even guessing at a release target.

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Al I can say is...

Yay! :D

At least they learn from their mistakes.

"John Carmack Sheds Some Light On Doom 4"

Ok, I have to satiate my curiosity and ask... pun intended?

I have no idea what you're talking about.

I enjoyed the horror aspect of Doom 3 and as much as I'm bugged they aren't focusing on it, I do think that the change is for the best and can't wait to get it!

Hopefully we'll be able to fight off dozens and dozens of enemies at once, with their corpses remaining unlike Doom 3 where you fight 2-3 demons a corridor and they always disappear. It'll be cool if they bring back some of the city scapes that Doom 2 had, and maybe some epic showdowns as well.

I'm not all that excited, but we'll see.

While I hate to use silly internet memes on a board like this, honestly the best way I can sum this up as is:

DO WANT

I'm already slightly drooling over the thought of facing down scads of imps, posessed marines, hellknights, and cyberdemons all rendered in glorious 3d, bearing down on me with an ass kicking metal soundtrack pumping while I unload my shotgun at them.

Nothing like a little old school gameplay to get my inner geek happy. :)

I should know better by now than to get my hopes up on a game these days, but it's been so long since there's been a game that I've been excited about :x.

Having talked to Sandy Petersen recently(Luvvie Alert), I think they should get him back onboard; because he is of the opinion that Doom 3 should have been more Painkiller and less Resident Evil. And he enjoyed Serious Sam.

Like a lot of other people, I enjoyed Doom 3 and I'm glad to hearing they're moving away from the horror aspect of the game into more straight-up action. I don't want to see horror eliminated entirely, because Doom certainly had its share of oppressive, scary areas - but they were implemented much more effectively than in Doom 3. Monster closets were rare enough that when you ran into one, it worked like it was supposed to, and while obviously the lighting options in 1993 were far more primitive than they are now, the game was still able to generate some real scares (or at least extended startles) with an effective blend of light and dark, rather than dark, darker, and holy-shit-I-can't-see-a-thing-in-here.

Scarier:

A) Walking through the dark and having a crewmate go "Boo!"?
or
B) Hearing an Archvile? On a sunny day, surrounded by flowers and chocolate.

Will survival horror on the PC survive? On the whole, the average person doesn't enjoy walking around in the dark, scared out of their wits. Horror movies are acknowledged as niche genres, and the biggest horror flick will never approach the mass appeal of a superhero movie. The sequels to Doom as well as Diablo show a gradual "turning the lights back on" effect, which will likely amount to changing the atmosphere in both games. Will big-budget horror games on the PC be marginalized due to perceived mass market appeal?

I never played doom III, but I vaguely remember in my childhood plowing through demons and monsters with my chainsaw and shotgun and pistol and every other weapon that they ever gave me in doom I and II. So maybe I'll have to get Doom IV.

@The_root_of_all_evil: If I'm playing on Ultraviolence, option B. I know what that SOB can do...

Seriously though, I think that more emphasis toward action is absolutely great. Although I did enjoy Doom 3, it felt like an almost completely different sort of game apart from the first two. I enjoyed the fast paced action of the originals, and that feeling just wasn't really present in Doom 3. To be honest though, I felt that Quake IV had a much better balance of horror/action, and that it was more of what I had orginally hoped Doom 3 would have been.

Bottom line though, Doom 4 should be: More Bang, Less Boo.

Doom 3 I found myself taking 2 steps and seeing if a monster popped out. In Doom 2 I ran around guns blazing killing stuff. I'll be happy to see a return to the run and gun format.

I never thought of Doom as a horror game as such. Doom 3 was mostly "jump out of the closet" type of scares, rather than real horror. It was a pretty cheap gimmick for the most part, mistaking being startled for being actually scared. Well, there was that one section with the light out, that was kind of creepy. A good "kill the demons" action smackdown would be very cool, if done correctly. It should be exciting and loud, I look forward to seeing it.

Yay more space marine action!(I'm not being sarcastic.)

Looking forward to seeing more as it develops.

If I get a big gun and bigger aliens to shoot with aforementioned big gun, I will be happy. Them aliens are doomed (it had to be done at some point)

"Can't see shit captain"

anyway, Doom 3 couldve succeeded with the horror aspect if it was actually scary.

the monsters werent scary, the sounds werent scary. nothing was scary about the game.

so yea, John, take us back to the olden days instead of trying to make a good horror FPS. He is a genius, but he's the most uncreative cunt in the industry.

Gotta say that I am glad that they are making an unsophisticated shooter rather than attempting to make a survival horror (need I mention Resi 4's attempt at blending horror and action).
Did laugh at the part about people wanting to say 'I won' rather than 'I'm not dead'.

This is not the future of gaming.
We need sandbox systems, we need art, emotions, feelings and multi arching plots.

Oh yeah F*** OFF!

Give me that Big F*****' Gun and LET'S ROOOCK!

HUARGH!