Doom 4 Was Rebooted Because It was Too Much Like Other Shooters

Last week at E3 2015, developer Bethesda showed off substantial gameplay of its upcoming Doom reboot. However, back in 2008 the studio announced Doom 4, the fourth in the storied franchise, but that game was canceled and development restarted in 2013. A new interview suggests that the game was scrapped because it was too similar to other shooters.

Speaking with Polygon, Bethesda's Pete Hines said that Doom 4 ended up departing too much from classic Doom games, to the point where it lost the feel of the series. As a result, it drifted more toward the design of other popular shooters until Bethesda decided it needed to rethink development.

"We decided that it wasn't Doom enough and needed to be thrown out and started over," Hines explained. "You can probably close your eyes and imagine a 'Call of Doom' or a 'BattleDoom' game, where it starts to feel way too much like: 'Wait, this doesn't feel like Doom, it feels like we're playing some other franchise with a Doom skin on it.'"

He described the game as too slow and overly dependent on common elements of other shooter games. Doom 4 didn't have nearly as robust an execution system as the reboot, either. According to Hines, "The combat was more disconnected, you almost found yourself taking cover at times and using things from other FPSes, which might be fine for them, but for Doom it just doesn't feel right."

The reboot, called simply Doom, will launch sometime in 2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. At E3, the game's producer assured players that even though the game looked easy during its demo, it will still pose a significant challenge when the final product comes out. You can check out our impressions of the gameplay shown off here.