CVG learns that British Fantasy award winning author Graham Joyce is penning id's new Doom.
Cast your minds back to May 2007 when id Software announced it was working on another entry in the Doom series. Not a lot was said apart from, "Doom is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next instalment of our flagship franchise to Earth."
As true as that may be, the project's been completely under wraps for the best part of a year and a half. Nothing is known about where the series will go next, though it's presumed that Doom 4 will continue where Doom 3 left off (in space and hell, in case you forgot).
CVG can confirm that British Fantasy award winning author Graham Joyce is writing the story to the game as you read this, though he had signed his life away and was unable to tell us anything about the direction the game was taking. We did ask. "I can say that ID have hired me to help develop the storyline potential," was all Joyce would give us when contacted.
Joyce has published fourteen novels and twenty-six short stories to date. He even picked up a few British Fantasy awards, so he knows what he's doing. Does he know Doom though? We'll have to wait and find out.
Have I misread the sentence about ID using the best talent etc...? It seems to mention the minor detail of bringing their franchise TO EARTH!!! Or is that refering to them telling us measly earth beings of their fantastic life in space fighting hell spawn?
Yet again iD is moving further and further away from what made Doom fun in the first place - taking on dozens of hellspawn at once with outlandish weaponry. Who really played Doom 1 and 2 and thought 'Hmmm, this is prime material for a complex, emotive and involving narrative?' Doom 3 had more in common with Resident Evil.
I got a free copy of a Doom novella with a magazine years and years ago. Might've been PC Zone. The story there worked well within the original Doom world. It was a good bit of additional info to bring the game to life. And the story came to life because due to the game I felt I'd already been there myself.
I like a decent story. I like to know WHY I'm killing these things. I like to know WHERE they're coming from. I want to know WHAT I'm fighting for. More story = more involvement.
I'm of the same opinion as Dajmin. This is some of the most encouraging news I've read regarding DOOM 4; I was very excited back when DOOM 3 was released and when I replayed it last year I found the beginning the most satisfying due to the fact that there was anticipation of the story that was about to unfold and things were still creepy and scary (in my opinion at any rate, I find there's something particularly unnerving about seeing the efforts of Man and his/her achievements overrun and abandoned like a ghost town). By the end of DOOM 3 I was frustrated and increasingly annoyed with the ever "bigger is better" mentality irrespective of any clever twists in the plot which at the time amounted to "Shoot more. Shoot often".
My wish for DOOM 4 is that iD takes advantage of more recent hardware advances and move beyond artificially closed environments and instead allow the gaming world to breathe while relying more on a genuinely captivating story to drive the game forward as opposed to the player's ammo and body count.
To Granny: Back when I first played DOOM on a Gateway Pentium 90 (oh my, how things have changed, hehehe!) I thought the graphics (at the time,) were good and it was exciting. Part of that excitement, for me at least, came from my imagining how the images I was seeing on the screen would play out if it were told as a narrative story in a book or in a movie or in an alternate "real world" universe.
Doom 3 had a surprisingly decent story by id standards. I see no reason to be against progress on this front.
At the end of the day, this isn't 1994 anymore. They can't just do what they did back then because it won't stand up. People even whined about monsters spawning in walls/cupboards in D3 yet that was a trademark feature of Doom, so that proves the point.
I never did finish Doom 3 (I must play it again this year) but I think the atmosphere was superb, particularly the sound design, and it was also one of the first games to have a realistic style PDA system.
I'm glad they are taking the story more seriously in Doom 4, frankly these days it's a requirement not just fluff, people expect a good story, and will turn it off if they don't feel they are progressing.
why do they need to hire that guy the best doom storyline has already been written and made into a song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBQIx5jiTsg
I'm having trouble deciding with myself whether that linked video is brilliant or so bad and tongue-in-cheek that it becomes good. I think it walks that elusive line between the two.
Based on that teaser about bringing Doom 4 to earth, I imagine Doom 4 will be to Doom 2 what Doom 3 was to Doom 1; effectively a remake.
Afterall, wasn't Doom 2 set on earth?
But who cares?! Doom in all its forms is fantastic. Bring it on!
The article certainly seems to hint at that in my opinion. Regardless, I hope they do include other humans like the did in DOOM 3 but with even more interaction. Not being all alone yet still surrounded by bodies and facing hordes of demons and zombies only serves to make it all the more enticing for me personally. Afterall, if you were the last human left alive what point is there really to struggle so hard to survive other than to avoid a gruesome death and perhaps a bit of payback? Granted, those can be powerful motivating factors yet what tops them are those two reasons *and* the ability to rebuild humanity through the scattered survivors a la the Half-Life games!
Incidentally I think that touches upon the evolution iD games needs to undergo: It can no longer just be about blasting left and right. There needs to be some sort of immersive plot that makes the player care as to what happens next as opposed to just keeping track of whether it took one or two shotgun blasts to fell that fire-breathing Imp in the corner.
This is good news. He wrote the Tooth Fairy which is an awesome horror novel, plus I read other great stuff by him - can't remember titles. Very good news for Doom fans.
I cannot wait for this, not idea who this guy is but any droplet of Doom 4 info is furiously snaffled. If his writing skills are good then all the better. Doom 3 was a triumphant game IMO and it stands very well to this day.
Take your time, ID... make it as jaw droppingly fantastic as possible.
A writer... Doom doesn't need a writer! Take one part Doom 2, mix with Left4Dead overindulgence: lots of monsters, lots of big guns, lots of big areas: Doom 4.
A writer... Doom doesn't need a writer! Take one part Doom 2, mix with Left4Dead overindulgence: lots of monsters, lots of big guns, lots of big areas: Doom 4.
Actually that sounds like a great idea; a bit of randomness in the monsters spawning is just what Doom needs to bring it bang up to date, and keep the shocks fresh each time!
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, UK BA1 2BW England and Wales company registration number 2008885
I'm having trouble deciding with myself whether that linked video is brilliant or so bad and tongue-in-cheek that it becomes good. I think it walks that elusive line between the two. 
