id: how Rage improves on Doom 3

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 12 August, 2011

Bigger and deeper, says Hollenshead.

id Software has explained why Rage, its upcoming first-person shooter, is better than Doom 3.

Sci-fi horror Doom 3 divided opinion upon its 2004 release and drew criticism for perceived repetition and monsters jumping out of cupboards.

Rage, due out in October, trumps it because, according to id CEO Todd Hollenshead, it's bigger, has more depth and seamlessly teaches players how it works.

"Rage is a huge game," Hollenshead told Eurogamer at QuakeCon last week. "It's the deepest game we've ever made. If I was as smart as John [Carmack] I could figure out the math of why it's bigger than everything else.

"I compare it to Doom 3. Doom 3 was great when it came out. I loved that game. But I think about the single-player experience for Doom 3 compared to Rage…

"There are elements that are the same. You still have guns. You still have bad guys you're shooting and areas you're shooting them in. I still think Doom 3 looks good.

"It doesn't look anything like Rage."

Despite some not warming to Doom 3, it set tills alight. id shifted more than 3.5 million copies of the game. It remains the most successful game by the famed developer.

Eurogamer's 2004 Doom 3 review of the single-player portion of the game fragged a 9/10.

"It may not feel like it's taking gaming forward to any appreciable degree in terms of astounding new ideas, but when it's as all round immersive and entertaining, who cares?" wrote Kristan Reed.

"The thrill of Doom III is simply that id has not only created something genuinely stand-out impressive on a technical level, but has gone on to create a beautifully unpretentious game that feels at home with itself in that it's not trying to be something it isn't."

Another area Rage improves upon Doom 3, according to Hollenshead, is in how it teaches the player how it works at the beginning of the game.

"I could take you over and say, sit down and play, and have complete confidence you'll know everything to do," he said.

"But with Doom 3, when you boot up the game on the PC, there's no, like OK, your control is WASD. We had some very simplistic stuff, like, walk around behind a robot, in the opening level before the invasion happened, but that was our version of a tutorial.

"I love the way we've done it in Rage. We teach you how to do everything that's integrated completely into the game so it's completely seamless to the player. Honestly, that's been one of my pet peeves with the company for years.

"I was like, we are not teaching people how to play deathmatch in Quake 3. This is not enough."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 9 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Softie2k #1 10 months ago

    Is this title a joke?

  • flibbles #2 10 months ago

    A torch on the gun would do.

  • apoc_reg #3 10 months ago

    So hyped for this now!

  • spekkeh #4 10 months ago

    Ah but does it also include an option that makes it stops raping your ears anytime you want to watch a video on eurogamer.

  • geeza2020 #5 10 months ago

    "I was like, we are not teaching people how to play deathmatch in Quake 3. This is not enough."

    People needed to be taught how to click on the other guy quicker than they click on you? How retarded are the general public?

  • Lunastra78 #6 10 months ago

    I'm one of the few that really loved Doom 3 when it came out. Being assaulted by the first Pinky in the control room was one of my most horrifying moments in video gaming until I played Amnesia.

  • GooseUK #7 10 months ago

    Short version: It's not 2004 anymore and it is nothing like doom

  • spekkeh #8 10 months ago

    Seeing as I've just finished my dissertation on the subject, I am interested in how the instruction is integrated into the game and level design. Guess I finally found a reason to buy this game, the game itself still seems generic as crap.

  • miiiguel #9 10 months ago

    I'm not the biggest fps fan, but I'm actually very excited about this game, iD are highly intelligent people.
    Edited by miiiguel at 12/08/11 @ 14:56

  • nickthegun #10 10 months ago

    "Oh, a smallish room with a locker, an airvent and an unlit alcove. I wonder what will happen if I walk towards the door?"

    GRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR

    *seconds later*

    "Oh, another smallish room with a locker, an airvent and an unlit alcove. I wonder what will happen if I walk towards the door?"

    GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR

  • SBfistfun #11 10 months ago

    I upgraded my PC for Doom 3.

    Huge let down for me.

  • Severn2j #12 10 months ago

    I tempted to reinstall Doom 3 now. I never finished it first time round because of the spider-skull things.. Not a great bad guy for arachnophobes.

  • Eraser #13 10 months ago

    "People needed to be taught how to click on the other guy quicker than they click on you? How retarded are the general public? "

    While I can appreciate the humor in your post, I can't help but point out that the level of depth and strategy that comes with Quake 3 is immense. It's a game that scales very well. It's easy to learn but incredibly hard to master.

  • Chrasomatic #14 10 months ago

    Uhh console games have been doing in-game tutorials for some years now - this is all new to these people? They obviously haven't played Portal or Grand Theft Auto IV or Modern Warfare or any number of other games that subtely teach you their mechanics as you play.

  • Inmediasress #15 10 months ago

    I don't want to sound snobbish or something but are there still people that don't know how to play a freakin shooter??????
    Maybe if it was a stat heavy rpg(guess that's the reason we don't have any lol) I would agree but come on how brain dead can you be??
    Edited by Inmediasress at 12/08/11 @ 16:21

  • Negotiator1 #16 10 months ago

    As Rage is one of the best looking games coming out this year and I've bought a pretty decent PC a number of months ago, what would be a good graphics card to run this game at high levels.

  • Mr.DNA #17 10 months ago

    Am I alone in being bored out of my fucking mind hearing about this game? It's not even out yet and I feel as if I have been bludgeoned to death with information-overload. Seriously, for the past two and a half years it's been Rage this and Rage that. Just shut the fuck up id. I hope it fails on a epic scale.

  • Inmediasress #18 10 months ago

    @Mr.DNA
    While I don't wish for them to fail it certainly won't be an astounding blockbuster hit.
    Probably it will do okay and make money to them but certainly not truckloads of money more lieke bucket loads.
    Let's face it ID came late to the whole postapocalyptic nuclear wasteland party.
    Edited by Inmediasress at 12/08/11 @ 16:46

  • Stymphalius #19 10 months ago

    Doom 3 was pretty much just a corridor shooter tech demo, and I enjoyed it, but sounds like Rage will actually have a story attached and some interesting ideas to boot. So it has an apocalyptic wasteland setting just like a ton of other games... the graphics won't be cel-shaded like Borderlands and the combat won't be flimsy like in Fallout, so I'm excited for this one. id really excels at making games that just feel good to play.

  • Trafford #20 10 months ago

    I'd like to know what games Mr DNA is looking forward to.

    Personally, Rage is the first FPS to prick my interest in quite a few years.
    Maybe it's the id brand, but they have my pre order.

  • drxym #21 10 months ago

    Doom 3 might have been a reasonably good tech demo but it was a shockingly poor game. I bought it as quickly as anybody else when it was released and I sorely regretted doing so. Yeah it was great how when you shot a hanging light the shadows changed in the room. It's too bad the rest of the game was just a stupid linear corridor shooter with exactly the same predictable sequence of events happening over and over - advance, step on some trigger, lights out, flashlight / gun, shoot stuff, lights on, proceed.

    It was a bad game.

    Funnily enough Far Cry appeared just before it from the hitherto unknown Crytek and was a vastly superior in virtually every way (except cutscenes).

  • Rack #22 10 months ago

    Even if I wanted to play deathmatch it would take me a hundred years to be good enough at it to win a single matc. Some people new to it might be able to do it in 5 but we're pretty much at the stage where a deathmatch tutorial is giving you a thimbleful of water to get you on the way to collecting your very own ocean.

    Oh and GTAIV might have well have written TUTORIAL across the screen in font size 200 for the first 20 hours of the game, I don't think it would be any more clear what was going on.

  • ajaxpliskin #23 10 months ago

    How many more id articles do you think they'll put out before they release Rage? 30? 60?

  • curryking3 #24 10 months ago

    Can't wait, been looking forward to Rage for a long time :D

  • Mr.DNA #25 10 months ago

    @Trafford: Skyrim and Dark Souls.

  • stryker1121 #26 10 months ago

    Innovation is overrated..i won't care if this another post-nuke shooter if the gameplay is tight.

  • Mister-Wario #27 9 months ago

    Inmediasres: this. I have literally no interest in this game because it just looks like a mix of Fallout and Borderlands. Come on, I can't help but feel we have a perfectly good post-apocalyptic shooter or two already. Why do we need ANOTHER one?

  • TaniumZX #28 9 months ago

    I really enjoyed Doom 3 when it was released on the original Xbox. I have no problem with 'corridor tech demos' (or whatever the 'experts' on here label them as) either. Dead Space 2 is one of my favourite games this gen, and there are plenty of corridors, lights going out and monsters jumping out of cupboards in that also.

  • Nithron #29 9 months ago

    What ruined Doom 3 for me, was the "switch to previous weapon" button not working. I'd run into a monster, have my flashlight out, whack the swap weapon button, then hit fire.

    About 10% of the time the button didn't work, and i'd be hitting a fifteen foot long rhino-looking cybernetic demon with the back end of a torch.

  • Dexter2015 #30 9 months ago

    when I see that trailer I was like .... Fallout 3 with better graphics... a other wasteland :(

  • braydee89 #31 9 months ago

    Sounds like my gf might enjoy it...