The Death of DOOM and id Software - Thank you Hugo Farting and Co. (2400+ words of a fan)

[Ashtr1x]

Where to even start ? Lets begin from the "black sheep" of the franchise.

DOOM 3

2004 id Tech 4 masterpiece. John Carmack designed from ground up and revolutionized 3D computer graphics. The art was out of the world for that time, and the game can be played fast, only issue was flashlight. Level design was perfection, Alpha Labs, Delta Labs, Caverns, every single set piece had a relevance to the plot progression and the location meant something which is absent now, only 2016 had it to an extent. Gore, horror and it's Lovecraftian inspiration like Space-horror, defining the genre only Deadspace 1 and 2 captured it again. Event Horizon but much better in every way since you can play it. The SFX and visual appeal is timeless even today. Only other revolutions were Crytek, Crysis in 2009, and GTA IV.

Mod support was also excellent, which takes it beyond modern trash slop. Yes, it’s for BFG Edition which removes a lot of limitations from it and goes above the base DOOM 3 engine, no TXAA (Temporal AA) blur trash either during those days.
https://github.com/RobertBeckebans/RBDOOM-3-BFG

DOOM 2016

After Rage in 2011 with id Tech 4 advancements, team struggled to generate lot of sales, but learning from rage development helped in designing the next DOOM, if you watch no clip documentary, you can see old staff. Yes, Carmack left id software in 2014, but all of his work was carried over by team.

Kevin Cloud, veteran at id (Quake etc), Robert Duffy, CTO. Since Carmack left they had to hire, mind you Tim Willits is still at the helm, he was at id since 1993. So Marty Stratton was brought up as Game Director for this 2016 reboot. Hugo Martin, ex-Pacific Rim concept aritst in his resume. They mention how DOOM 3, and even cancelled DOOM 4 industrial design of the UAC is always key component to the game design, and thus designed the levels of the game in such a way, plus the legendary Glory Kill mechanic was a part of DOOM 4, which made its way into the final copy.

A true timeless masterpiece, Hall of Fame. Gritty artstyle, environmental storytelling, top notch graphics, superb performance optimization without any BS RT. All baked lights cast great SSR (Screen Space Reflections), Shadows, the lighting is outstanding in this game, just install Carmack Reshade mod for the DOOM 2016 and see for yourself, even if it had TXAA Temporal Blur AA the game is perfect because the devs mastered it, and the reshade fixes a lot of desaturation too. The level design is just perfect, homage to old DOOM and DOOM 3's claustrophobic levels, the tactical information about weapons, the codex it's all a lightning in bottle. Samuel Hayden, VEGA, all of the bosses esp the Cyberdemon, back in 2014 they released an E3 teaser, Cyberdemon with Olivia's Voice over with original DOOM ballast door sounds, how she highlights that UAC designed Cyberdemon is a product of high end technology and Hell’s force, followed by another E3 trailer, with gameplay, gore and the signature death animations of demons killing the doomguy, the game hit everyone by surprise.

Oh how can we not mention Mick's OST, BFG Division, the level of BFG itself is outstanding, the game also had horror elements to it and Hell levels were a mystical aspect of the game too.

So many liked this game, I even got the Ltd Edition Artbook for this title. A proper sci-fi shooter. Excellent gunplay, Extreme gore and violence, Adrenalin blood fueled FPS gameplay, full player agency and control just surpassing all FPS games. Even today nothing can match it. Vulkan on top. Sadly, no modding support at all. Zenimax / Bethesda ruined great potential with this game and id Tech 6's achievement. Thankfully some modders stepped up and we got some great addons for the game such as Master Levels, Carmack Reshade, DOOMFX, more.

The downfall starts now...

DOOM Eternal

Kevin Cloud is still there, unfortunately Tim Willits left Id Software in 2018, from 1993 to 2018 he oversaw all projects. Quakecon 2018 you see the HUD? not found in retail copy. Drastically changed the game.
Anti-thesis of DOOM starts, Hugo Farting, he watched Clockner's DOOM 2016 gameplay with 2M views and commented on a stream how he wanted everyone to play like him. BUT with added restrictions and loss of player agency / control. Enter the Arcade trash of DOOM Eternal, Proof is tons of threads on this forum on how Eternal is bad and many hoped The Dark Ages would be more of DOOM 2016 type, it did not.

"Saturday Morning Cartoon" Hugo's quoted statement, that's what this clown wanted DOOM to be, why is this franchise which is a hardcore M rated game with UAC backdrop and high tech sci-fi is such? No idea. Since Tim left, Marty Stratton became id Software Studio Director and Hugo got promoted to sole direction of DOOM Eternal and he was totally removed from leash. But still some of the old blood in id stayed so the core game did not suffer badly. Also BIlly Ethan Khan was the engine senior now, perhaps Robert Duffy saw through it (he left id in 2024), and due to that Sentinel script is entirely Arabic centric design.

So as per his another quote "my son who is 9 years old can also play" yea he wanted that, which is why you see Heroism of the game and total dilution of franchise, "Doomslayer" from Doomguy, started plus the stupid SFX they added, imagine going from DOOM 3 / DOOM 2016 to Eternals - Marauder / heavy demon stagger animations and looney tunes effects like stars, headshot pops, Demon designs less intimidating, revenant downgrade, cacodemon eye pops. DLC2's Avengers MCU style portals, in D2016 your Preator suit and Teleporting to Hell was handled by Argent Energy, Hayden and UAC did. Everything was thrown out for this cheesy comical garbage. Floating big pickups, out of the loop flying weapons, codex pages, stupid toys, D2016 put them in a very clever fashion so that it did not hamper the game immersion, Codex is totally ruined with retcons, Fantasy in a Sci-Fi setting, Colorbomb explosion, Poor color grading. The story from Environmental aspect is totally gone, trashed out replaced by the poor fraudulent imitation of Warhammer 40K with Sentinels, Makyrs and other nonsensical fluff.

The gameplay- Forced player restrictons, Arcade monkey bars, Poor level design with padded platforms, DLC and DLC2 are ultimate cringe in story and direction, Portals from MCU, Avengers themed storytelling, Cutscenes which pull out of FPS into 3rd person killing immersion. Tutorials immersion as well, the HUD also reeked of arcade trash than Sci-Fi grounded setting. Everything that was praised in D2016 were gone including the dread and gore of the UAC facilities in this game. The only good additions were addition of old enemies, like Pain Elemental, new Doom hunter, Marauders, Archviles, Hell Baron armored versions, Summoners etc. Remember Arch Vile reveal? Yes, it was not there in final copy, due to aforementioned reasons of id restructure, the direction of game totally changed.

The high points - As much as Eternal was trash in its direction. COVID time helped them to market heavily, Shroud and other streamers played it and the heavy focus on FPS skill ceiling and PC - KBM centric focus made the game a huge hit, many were dismayed but still played it, the core gameplay was still DOOM 2016 style, the gunplay and glory kills were used from D2016 and recycled same animations and effects. So the fanbase got divided ultimately.

They even nerfed the infamous Marauder, even though I do not hate it, many cried about it, and the AI aggression also got axed by the patches, added DLC2 trash hammer in a DOOM game to stun enemies and make it easy, focused entirely on the comical BS. The AI design in D2016 was impeccable, they turned everything to 11 and cramped into small levels with Eternal with padding.

You can clearly observe the lack of professional approach of the Eternal with Tim Willits leaving, plus it caused a massive fight within the studio and their sound engineer / producer with Mick Gordon, Chad Mossholder and eventually the whole thing got out of control. Revealing the fallout, in the end the OST were not up to the mark, mixing was not there, artifacts, eventually the bridge was burned out causing a void within the game sound design.

Mods Sorry I forgot to mention this, yes mods. DOOM Eternal had again zero official mod support, all the mod team did some heavy lifting, without them this game was unplayable. I could not handle that rainblow confetti in my DOOM game. The skins in this game were crazy as hell, turned it into a joke, that Knightmare one, hilarious pandering. Anyway the mods which were essential were to fix the lootdrops, doomfx, demon design to 2016, ammo mods for those who want (I did not require because once you get all weapons you can use only SSG, Ballista, Chaingun, RocketLauncher, no need to get CBTed by the Hugo restrictions). Then we have post 5.4 version patches of nerfs to AI, DLC1 TAG1 AI and AI downgrade, Marauder stagger joke clowniness, a lot more fluff, plus the loading screens replaced by concept art, scarlet light instead of stupid traffic light green signal. And a lot more... all these mods were mandatory for me. Thankfully I'm done, archived what I want. DLC2 TAG2 I won't touch. It's cancerous garbage and Avengers cringe.

However once the official mod support came, the modders were like no you don't update them on Nexus you move them all to stupid Bethesda site, like wtf ? id the site goes down or whatever happens at MS and they kill it, all your works are gone forever. Why do the id Software leadership aka Marty Stratton handle the mods in such haphazard way, moddb, nexusmods etc are the places to get mods on, not your own publisher site, epic fail. The only way to preserve is to use a Pirated copy and archived mods. It's a sin to rely on bethesda site to install mods with bethesda account requirement. The modders also changed teams. Sad fail.

By the way, I got the DOOM Eternal Artbook (not Ltd ed, it was just Gabz art and 2016 had a lithograph with autographs) and Metal pins for weapons too made by Numskull. They are limited edition. Yes even though I hated how Eternal took the franchise, it still had guns in it and demanded high skill all with D 2016 skeleton and foundation plus it spawned some mods for D2016 to a bit of respect there. I also got DOOM 2016 Doomguy lithograph plus Cyberdemon Lithograph too, both limited editions. My DOOM 2016 Revenant themed QCK big size mouepad got destroyed because of stupid Steelseries fraying. I also have the DOOM 2016 hoodie in black and red striping it still holds up well, it has DOOM logo in the front and rip/tear logo in the back both in stitching unlike Eternal's printed junk and modern printed apparel which will go away with washes.

Enter the final iteration and nail in the coffin.

DOOM The Dark Ages

More like Reddit ages. Robert Duffy left in 2024, Kevin Cloud does not work at id Software anymore. Hugo Martin went crazy sniffing his own farts of trash writing, old staff at id Software, perhaps most of them left.

The gameplay is completely downgraded. To the point of no return.
Parry every single attack, Green glow hand holding parry indicator, Yellow paint markers, Huge Eternal pickups again, Tutorials galore everywhere, Slow-Mo on every Melee / Parry. Mini puzzle hand holding, NPC Thira narration of every single thing, Sentinel soldiers narrating, Suit is now also narrating lmao, the stupidly placed color identified markers for shield jumps, shield throws, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥’s a literal kid friendly game.

Extreme melee emphasis in combat inspired by Dark souls sloppy combat of Dodge Roll, 4 total melee weapons - Gauntlet, Mace, Flail, Chainshot - a glorified overpowered flail masquerading as a gun, Hugo Farting was like oh this that during the reveal, what a disaster. Watch Draqu's full Ultra Nightmare run around 6hrs, he did the whole game with that weapon only and the shotgun with incendiary ammo that even overpowers the SSG. All the guns are so weak, they do not have any skill requirement either, the entire game is consolized to death, and PC KBM has little no effect on gameplay, the E key for melee takedown and the stupid flail or whatever you bind it, is all you need. Zero skill, Zero impact, Zero gore, Zero story, Zero immersion.

It does not stop there, Mech and Dragon section - The dragon flying is totally on rails there's no impact at all or weight to the flying, the devs should play Ace Combat first to understand how flying works. Esp. that Hugo joker. The combat loop is a huge joke, dodge left / right / up / down. Mech is also same glorified QTE trash. Zero impact of the heaviness. So much so for that guy working on Pacific Rim, did he ever see that movie lol? ♥♥♥♥♥ crusader punches were felt through the screen, the running, movements and every single animation had ramification of the environmental effects in the movie, all of them absent in this game. How about this guy playing Armored Core VI or Titanfall 1/2 ?

All he did was to play modern God of Soy and reimagined it along with sloppy souls combat into an FPS game, and killed the fun out of it.

Story – Why does these Makyrs shown as uber powerful race which gave tech to Sentinels are now playing zero role, that Obese makyr Kreed Bishop was like we cannot remove the tether and lose control of prized possession so they did not explain jack about this Heroshooter garbage lore which they advertised so heavily. And Thira is a now a big boss lady devoid of any feminine values or aspects, she gets more spotlight than King Novik and Doomguy. They added that stupid villain, prince Ahzrak who needs this mcguffin plot device of “Ancient god” and Thira (Debra Wilson again, forgot to mention her, a token DEI from M$) again has that, plus she is super strong guys, I bet DLC will have her playable, that will even more hilarious. Zero feminity in any of the NPCs who are so diverse, DEI checkbox. Also to note these guys were so afraid during D2016 they mentioned how Summoner is a female but no assets because they went safe. Whiplash in Eternal also same, but in Dark Ages you put so many women and they are human what about them? Just grow a pair or borrow some from Stellar Blade devs. Vagary in DOOM 3 is a female demon, making her more dreadful, this design ideology is in Silent Hill as well. Now in TDA a trash monster with bullet hell cringe attacks.

Cosmic Realm, the jokes transcend our realm to hugo’s sewage realm. A green hazy level with zero dread of Lovecraftian entities, that old one is a joke, at best he is Vilgax from benten but even worst powers, his kin got themselves rekt by this stupid mcguffin tether of Makyrs and somehow slayer dies in there and goes to hell without any repercussion, there’s ZERO impact guys. Then He comes back alive with worse than MCU level story and ritual by Sentinel jokers. This dude Hugo should go and play God of War III and see how Kratos journeys through Hell and fights with all of his powers lost with Blades of Exile granted by Athena. You cannot just go to hell like a picnic and come back.

Did these guys ever played Bethesda’s own Evil Within line of games? Those are true horrors plus even more ironic is Id Tech 5 powered them. They are proper lovecraft titles. Also this Hugo is like I’m a big fan and team also of Lovecraft works but yea dude you shat on it hard. Lovecraftian entities are extremely powerful, you even destroyed Baron, Cacodemon. Go and watch – The Void movie and see how these things are, or watch Atterados or When Evil Lurks or Event Horizon or just replay Deadspace or another classic Visceral Games timeless art – Dante’s Inferno This is not hell or anything, it’s a stupid wet fart of Warhammer 40K gothic inspired nonsensical garbage dilution of DOOM franchise.

Complete death ensued with the loss of Mick Gordon, Finishing Move was hyped up and ended with a whimper, same for the franchise.

Technically also the game is a failure, the art book is 12Gigs, and I went through, it's not at all 2016 level nor they even made a physical one this round, looks like they blew all the budget on bloated open world design and creatIng a new combat system from ground which bombed hard. Plus the Thira or some young character did have some feminine character which got hit by wall by this 40-50 year old Thira bosslady, and the Cosmic realm entities looked decent however Hugo wanted a comic so they all were discarded, we got generic slop. Glory kills also gone replaced by generic melee takedowns, way to go Hugo, lets dump everything that made a success and try my own experimentation, and it failed. And TXAA heavy reliance, the game is a blur fest poor texture quality all over the place, the excellent optimization is gone out of window with Nvidia sponsorship and RT, 2016 looks more advanced than this in lighting, it's a shame how they are evolving backwards. id Tech 6 runs on iGPU, even Eternal ran at high FPS. Trash Ages won't even run on a 6C12T processor with 1080Ti GPU (No that's not my PC spec, I have an RT GPU Ampere card). Upcoming PT patch, lol even more FPS tank, all for a failed game ? Way to go. Also 85MB installer file on Disc for console. No wonder you failed on all platforms.

I forgot to mention the $100 price tag, overblown open world trash with no usefulness, mandatory RT, 8hr campaign for Nightmare players, that too counting cutscenes. Denuvo DRM. DOA. 30K peak, GG.

Fire Hugo Martin and co. Who ruined this franchise. A Colossal failure, I can understand there’s Microsoft hand in it, Slider garbage cope which is pushed by defenders of this slop is not id, it’s MS, Starfield has them. It does not fix anything, speeding up the entire game is not the point at all. But id Software relied too much on this clown and raped once greatest PC game of all time.

I hope they do not touch DOOM ever again for next 10 years. Let it die. Also do not let Hugo near Quake, Strogg will be raped to oblivion with his cheesy fantasies.


RIP DOOM.

DOOM 2016 > Eternal > Trash Ages.

[Cozy]

Hey buddy, maybe go down to the corner store and get yourself some ice cream and decompress, the world ain't so bleak.

[Sar]

Most sane Doom 3 fan.

[Sgt. Flaw]

All that work to probably be wrong...ID owns IDtech8

Way too TLDR btw

[Ser'Jin]

I'd like to agree with OP_TS, but I cant.
Eternal > DOOM 2016 >= Trash Ages.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/3017860/discussions/0/560246502201528031/

[Edward H.B]

bro, grow the f$ck up, get a life, and move on...

you dont like the current modern doom? ok
stop playing, and move on to another games, there's like +100000 games out there

the game did really good, the franchise is doing really good, and they will keep expanding and giving us more games, so k bye

[alex010300]

So many complains about the mechs and dragon stages like someone does not have the skills to make them a fun stage.

[Edward H.B]

Originally posted by Edward H.B:

bro, grow the f$ck up, get a life, and move on...

you dont like the current modern doom? ok
stop playing, and move on to another games, there's like +100000 games out there

the game did really good, the franchise is doing really good, and they will keep expanding and giving us more games, so k bye

also Quake 1 is the only good quake, with the lovecraftian and dark magic-fantasy tone

quake 2 and 4 is generic alien slop, and 3 is just a mp game...

[Sgt. Flaw]

I do find it hilarious that you think someone's going to read that ♥♥♥♥

[ThunderStruck115]

You lost me when you described Doom 3 as a masterpiece

[NOBLE SIX]

I find it hard to disagree with you've said but honestly dude work on your delivery. You've got some well thought out arguments but nobody is gonna take it seriously when you're just so rude. Chill out, edit the post, take the insults out and maybe you might be able enter into a dialogue with some important people.

[Doomfrost]

I hope Hugo takes the Doom franchise even further, I hope to see a Doom game that tackles the bejeweled genre. TDA already gave us rubies, now lets add all the precious gemstones. We need to sort em, match em, and then when we match em it blows a demon up.

[Yig]

Not reading it all but I agree with what I read. Except Doom 2016>Dark Ages> Eternal.

And yeah Hugo needs to go.

[Almaz]

Originally posted by Doomfrost:

I hope Hugo takes the Doom franchise even further, I hope to see a Doom game that tackles the bejeweled genre. TDA already gave us rubies, now lets add all the precious gemstones. We need to sort em, match em, and then when we match em it blows a demon up.

sh1t, that really blew me away XD

[Sar]

Originally posted by Doomfrost:

I hope Hugo takes the Doom franchise even further, I hope to see a Doom game that tackles the bejeweled genre. TDA already gave us rubies, now lets add all the precious gemstones. We need to sort em, match em, and then when we match em it blows a demon up.

2016 already did that.

[Many-Named]

Originally posted by Doomfrost:

TDA already gave us rubies, now lets add all the precious gemstones. We need to sort em, match em, and then when we match em it blows a demon up.

Sounds like a bad Rick and Morty line.