In a video feature, id Software designer Kevin Cloud went back to the issue of why "Doom 4" was cancelled and instead rebooted to 2016's "Doom" we know and love today.
According to the video feature made by former GameSpot video producer Danny O'Dwyer's Noclip series, Cloud mentioned that "Doom 4" did not feel like a "Doom" game due to its story and scope.
"We explored a direction and got to a certain point and felt like this really wasn't capturing what we felt like was going to be a strong Doom and what the fans would want from it," Cloud said.
"Doom 4" was supposed to be gearing towards the player having a connection towards the game world and its inhabitants. However, producer Marty Stratton acknowledged the idea before the "Doom" we know today had Activision's "Call of Duty" feel to it since the hit shooter was popular at the time. He even coined the term "Call of Doom."
"It was much closer to something like that type of game," he stated. "A lot more cinematic; a lot more story to it. A lot more characters around you that you were with throughout the course of the game. Definitely a different setting--it took place on Earth."
Originally, the developers were supposed to have "unbelievable" production values for "Doom 4." However, it "felt" far from an actual "Doom," with all military tactical actions such as taking cover and shooting zombies as shown in early sections.
"It was definitely a twist on Doom that took it into a much more cinematic, much more scripted type of experience," he said. "It was a reimagining of Doom in a way that was new. It didn't feel as much like Doom as I think a lot of us expected it would feel or hoped it would feel."
The "Doom 4" concept had some similarities to Robert Zemeckis's "Contact" film, according to creative director Hugo Martin.
"It was awesome, but it was more realistic," Martin said. "It was more about the global impact of a hellish invasion. As a concept I could see why they went there because I would probably want to explore that, too--if it wasn't a Doom game. To tell a bigger story, it scarified the doom slayer. Doom is about one guy involved in big things. Doom 4 was about the big things."
This wasn't first time the topic around "Doom 4" was discussed. Back in 2014, studio director Tim Willits said "Doom 4" "didn't have...passion and soul."
"It wasn't one thing," he said. "It wasn't like the art was bad, or the programming was bad. Every game has a soul. Every game has a spirit. When you played Rage, you got the spirit. And [Doom 4] did not have the spirit, it did not have the soul, it didn't have a personality. It had a bit of schizophrenia, a little bit of an identity crisis. It didn't have the passion and soul of what an id game is."
