id go back to basics

Apart from what little we could glean from the mirky demonstration of the game's graphics engine at the recent MacWorld show in Tokyo, details of id Software's new Doom game are few and far between. What we do know though is that id appear determined to make this their best game ever, and to once again push the boundaries on the single player element of the game rather than just producing light weight fluff which is held up by multiplayer support and mod makers. "The story in this game dwarfs anything in previous id games, which admittedly isn't too hard", confirmed programmer Jim Dosé in a recent interview.

The game also marks the first time in at least five years (and probably more) that John Carmack and friends have started again from scratch when producing a new game engine. Generally JC concentrates on upgrading two or three key systems while keeping the rest of the framework much the same, but this time it's a case of 'everything must go'. "It's a completely new engine. During the early parts of the development, the 'scaffolding' of the [Quake 3 engine] has remained in place to allow us to keep the game working while systems are replaced, but the major code that defines what the engine is capable of is completely new. Rendering, collision detection, modeling / animation, game code, physics, sound and networking are all being completely written from scratch."

Sadly (for us old nostalgic types anyway) it's going to be all new when it comes to the gameplay as well, with any hopes of fighting vast hordes of enemies as seen in the original Doom and more recent games such as Serious Sam seemingly being dashed. "It's too early to say", Jim said. "But considering that we're going for much higher detail characters, as well as a highly detailed and dynamic environment, you can probably draw your own conclusions."

Source - Daily Radar