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Bethesda To Unleash the Hounds of Hell On May 13th: Doom Release Date Confirmed (hothardware.com)

Posted by timothy on from the beethoven's-favorite-video-game dept.

MojoKid writes: Bethesda and id Software are in the process rebooting the Doom franchise and it seems like it's been in development for ages. When we last visited the upcoming Doom remake, Bethesda had posted a giblet-filled trailer which showed some pretty impressive gameplay visuals, killer hand-to-hand combat and plenty of head stomping. However, Bethesda just clued gamers in on something that Doom fans have been anticipating for years, an actual release date. Mark your calendars for May 13th, because that's when Doom will be available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and of course, the PC platform. Bethesda also dropped a new campaign trailer for you to ogle.

2 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. What's the point? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When it came out, it could get away with its completely unremarkable setting because it was technologically unique. But now that there are shooters aplenty, many of which have something to set them apart from the competition beyond technology, what's the point of doing a reboot of what by now has become a completely unremarkable franchise? If you want to release a new game, why not think up something new and fresh?

    1. Re:What's the point? by gman003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Doom is actually pretty different than modern shooters. Everyone right now is doing near-future sci-fi military conflicts. Doom may still be sci-fi, but it's got a different aesthetic - borrowing from Christian demonology and pseudo-medieval fantasy for the art, and heavy metal for the audio. I can actually think of very few other things that do that sort of mix, definitely very few games.

      As for the gameplay, both the DooM 1/DooM ][ sort of shooter, and the Doom 3 sort of shooter, are pretty different from the modern standard. Classic DooMs were extremely fast, but had slow-moving projectiles that could be dodged, and had extremely nonlinear maps. Doom 3 was slower and more methodical, and much more linear, but made a decent attempt at making a good horror shooter (it didn't fully succeed, but it was at least a novel attempt. Some lessons could be taken from FEAR, which had the same goal but different methods, which brought it more success). Both of those are different from the modern ultra-linear, setpiece-focused level design, and the twitchy, aim-focused shooters that are practically just reaction tests.

      The Doom Reboot seems to be going for the more classic style, which (if true, and if done competently) would make it significantly different from all the other shooters out there.