Doom 4 "Indefinitely Postponed" Following RAGE


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Doom 4 "Indefinitely Postponed" Following RAGE?s Disappointing Launch

A source claiming to be close to the publishers of the recently-launched RAGE has told Kotaku that, at a recent "company wide" meeting held in Dallas, Bethesda and parent company Zenimax made the decision to "indefinitely postpone" development of Doom 4.

Despite having been first announced back in 2008, Doom 4 has been on the backburner at developers id while work was completed on multiplatform shooter RAGE, which was released earlier this month to decidedly mixed reviews. While Crecente enjoyed it (and I'm digging it as well), the game's repetitive nature and numerous technical issues left it falling well short of many people's expectations.

The apparent source says that Zenimax and Bethesda made the decision based on the "the issues and reviews" surrounding RAGE's launch, which in their eyes has demonstrated "a serious lack of confidence in the project management at id".

Remember that, before you get too invested in this, at the moment the news is entirely unconfirmed. We've contacted Bethesda for comment and clarification, and will update if we hear back.

Source: Kotaku

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Well, let's weigh some things out here. Doom 3 had very mixed reviews as well. I personally thought Doom 3 sucked horribly, and random crap jumping out at you every 5mins got old REALLY quick. I got Rage from GameFly on Tuesday, played it for almost 2hrs, then lost about 30mins of progress (because unlike 99% of all other games that have come out recently, this one decided to go old school and do manual saves) when I finally died. My opinion on Rage is that it's a 7.5 "at best", and that's being generous. It's not a "horrible" game, but it's not a "good" game either. I should have listened to my instincts and removed it from my queue so that I would have gotten Arkham City instead. I really wanted Arkham City over Rage :( Now the question is: Send it back, or give it another chance and try to finish it. Now, if Doom 4 turns out like either Doom 3 or Rage (which, coming from the same developer is highly likely), then it will suck for me as well and probably have the same kind of mixed reviews.

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There are some smart people at id. Sadly they're not the best game designers.

I've not really enjoyed an id game since Quake 3, and even then I thought Unreal Tournament was better.

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I actually liked Doom 3, so I'm a little disappointed at the news that they MIGHT postpone Doom 4 indefinitely. Frankly, I think they should find a new publisher, Bethesda is a fail house, they're the first to complain about their games, but the games developed by Bethesda Softworks usually ends up being unplayable and buggy, needing Day-1 patches in order to get it to work for 40% of the people playing it. Example: Fallout 3

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I liked Doom 3 as well. It was not a GOTY by any means, but I actually found it fun to play and at the time it really did push graphics and was a beast on that side of things. I think people just put unrealistically high expectations on it. I am currently playing Rage right now, and while it is terribly short in length, I think it is actually one of the better FPS's as far as mechanics in quite some time actually. Again, I just think unrealistic expectations were placed on the game.

It is almost a no win situation for iD. Being labeled as the developer who more or less created the FPS genre as we know it today has definitely worked against them.

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I never finished Doom 3. By the time I ran down corridor #101 in pitch black I got bored with it. Though from what I've seen of Rage the game is pretty decent. :s

I liked Doom 3 as well. It was not a GOTY by any means, but I actually found it fun to play and at the time it really did push graphics and was a beast on that side of things. I think people just put unrealistically high expectations on it. I am currently playing Rage right now, and while it is terribly short in length, I think it is actually one of the better FPS's as far as mechanics in quite some time actually. Again, I just think unrealistic expectations were placed on the game.

It is almost a no win situation for iD. Being labeled as the developer who more or less created the FPS genre as we know it today has definitely worked against them.

I hate to say this but maybe dlc will flesh the game out nicely and give it whatever it's missing, that's my hope anyways.

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Kotaku, journalism at it's finest.

Seriously, why the hell would they report unconfirmed news? :|

...any gaming media outlet would have reported this news if they had a source they felt was legitimate. Hell, some of the best stories of all-time start out like this. Ever heard of Watergate?

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...any gaming media outlet would have reported this news if they had a source they felt was legitimate. Hell, some of the best stories of all-time start out like this. Ever heard of Watergate?

Watergate and unconfirmed news are two different things. They had reason to be suspicious at Watergate.

Any respectable gaming site would wait for confirmation of things before they report it. It's not worth reporting unless it's verifiable.

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Any respectable gaming site would wait for confirmation of things before they report it. It's not worth reporting unless it's verifiable.

Close enough to news is as good as news now. To be fair, this is an industry where rumor is common and indeed sometimes encouraged by the gaming journalists. it's usually to create hype, not to let the people know a well loved franchise has been shelved... Bbut ya'know.

Maybe id should have focused on making another Doom instead Rage. They probably would have made more money just from the fact people love Doom and would have ought it just because it was a new Doom game.

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Doom 3 was brilliant. Loved it and still play it today. It totally captured the Doom i remembered from my youth playing Doom 1 and 2 on my mates crummy 486 pc.

Cant wait for Doom 4. Tho Id like to see level design akin to the old dooms and not the corridors routine again.

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Kotaku, journalism at it's finest.

Seriously, why the hell would they report unconfirmed news? :|

kotaku is more of a blog aren't they?

and i hope not, doom 3 was the last game that scared the crap out of me. stupid demon babies...

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Poor iD, having to deal with such idiots.

Indeed :D

As for rage, it feels like all that graphical progress id made with doom was lost somewhere in rage, especially with the ammount of low res textures :D And lightning.

Anyway i can't wait for Doom 4...and i hope that it will be a proper pc game.

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it would be silly to not make Doom 4. RAGE seems to be selling well, so there's no problem there. some slightly negative reviews should not be a problem. i hear the people that think Doom 3 was more distinct, but i personally like RAGE a whole lot more. never had a problem with repetitive games, if they do a few things very well i don't mind doing those for 10-15 hours. the low res textures should not have happened, it's a shame indeed, but not a deal breaker. still my GOTY.

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Watergate and unconfirmed news are two different things. They had reason to be suspicious at Watergate.

Any respectable gaming site would wait for confirmation of things before they report it. It's not worth reporting unless it's verifiable.

Actually, they didn't. Watergate was a story that most in the Washington Post and other media outlets wanted to bury because there was very little to substantiate it at the time. There was also very little reason to be suspicious.

I don't think you're really getting how the media works: if you have a rumor from a source you believe to be trustworthy, you're damn sure going to report it or you're going to get beaten to the punch. They're not reporting it as fact -- they're reporting it as unverified. This is how the news process works, from gaming to world news.

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When you release a game and it's broken to hell to start with... Yeah, people are going to be disappointed.

iD is more of a software tech company than a game company for past decade IMO.

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http://ht.ly/1ffBpv

id_0.jpg

Dueling reports on the future of Doom 4 make for an interesting morning. In one report from Kotaku, an "anonymous source" tells the publication that because Rage performed so poorly, id Software's next big title in the Doom series had been delayed. The anonymous source went on to say that Bethesda and its parent company Zenimax held a "company-wide meeting" in Dallas, where the decision was finally made. Finally, the source claimed that there was “a serious lack of confidence in the project management at id."

Not so fast, says Bethesda PR frontman, Peter Hines. Taking to Twitter, Hines called the report "complete ********."

"Re: DOOM 4 rumor, games are done when they are done and no title under development at id has been postponed – indefinitely or otherwise," tweeted Hines.

Later Kotaku updated its story with further comments from Hines, who said the following:

"We don't comment on unannounced games and DOOM 4 hasn't been announced (though I appreciate that id has previously referenced DOOM 4)," Hines said. "Games are done when they are done and no title under development at id has been postponed – indefinitely or otherwise."

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Umm last I checked Bethesda was just the publisher and iD is the developer. I'm pretty sure iD could just go to another publisher if Bethesda said no unless they signed some exclusivity agreement with them (which would be bad).

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