Grab Your Chainsaw and BFG, Doom 4 Announced

Shotguns, chainsaws, hell spawn, tight corridors, the BFG, and a whole bunch of ass kicking. In case you’ve been living under a rock since 1993, Doom helped to define the FPS genre. With the possible exception of the Wolfenstein series, I’m not sure that any game was a better virtual babysitter during my teen years. Fifteen years since its conception and four years since Doom 3 scared the crap out of us, id Software has finally announced Doom 4. With next to nothing revealed about the game itself, speculation is the order of the day.

As is the case with many early-stage game announcements, the press release seems to be more of an advertisement to lure promising game developers than anything else. There’s no trailer, teaser, screenshots or concept art. We’re not even positive that the game will be using the id Tech 5 gaming engine, which was revealed last summer. That said, the announcement did contain some interesting tidbits that may give some insights into the next installment in this venerable franchise.

id’s CEO, Todd Hollenshead mentions, “DOOM is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth.” Is this a double entendre? Obviously, they want to bring the game to Earth, literally. But perhaps they mean that the setting is back on Earth- similarly to, say, Doom II: Hell on Earth, is it not?

Doom 3 is a complete re-envisioning of the original Doom. So will Doom 4 be a radical update to Doom II? Some already think so. Others just think ‘Doom is Doom,’ we’ll all buy it, so why speculate.

The Doom series has traditionally been a PC game, so websites like GameFAQs have Doom 4 listed under their PC section exclusively for now. Frankly, after Doom 3’s relatively successful launch on the original Xbox, fear not, I think that it is highly unlikely that console players will not get some more of that good Doom lovin’.