GAME · 2016
Doom
- Developer
- Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher
- Bethesda Softworks
- Platforms
- Microsoft Windows
22 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
15 Facts From the Development of Doom
- #001
After Doom 3 shipped in 2004, id Software started work on a new property called Rage and tried without success to hand the Doom franchise to another studio, as it had done with Wolfenstein.
- #002
id Software started developing Doom 4 in 2007, though the studio had only 19 employees when Doom 3 launched and found it hard to work on Rage and Doom 4 at the same time.
- #003
The existence of Doom 4 became public on May 7, 2008, when job postings for a project with that title appeared on id Software's website.
- #004
ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, bought id Software on June 23, 2009, and said Bethesda would publish id's future titles; id creative director Tim Willits said the deal let the company run two teams with projects in parallel, while id CEO Todd Hollenshead stated in April 2009 that Doom 4 was neither a sequel to Doom 3 nor a reboot.
- #005
Doom 4, the earlier version of the 2016 game Doom, was to have its story written by British science fiction author Graham Joyce.
- #006
The planned Doom 4 was to take place on Earth and was described as a new interpretation of Doom II, subtitled Hell on Earth.
- #008
Doom 4 drew on the Call of Duty first-person shooter series, with passive health regeneration, cover-based protection for the player character and scripted cinematics; developers and fans mocked the project as "Call of Doom". After Rage arrived in 2011 to mixed reception, id and Bethesda judged Doom 4 out of step with the original games and restarted its development.
- #009
Bethesda unveiled a teaser trailer for Doom at E3 2014 on June 10, 2014.
- #010
Stratton, Martin, and id used the original Doom games as a template for Doom's artwork and gameplay, abandoning the slower pace and survival horror themes of Doom 3; Stratton emphasized id's desire to remain faithful to the legacy and tone of the original Doom, and Willits said Doom was built on the emotional core of the original game.
- #011
Development of Doom centered on refining its combat, which was described as "push forward combat".
- #012
The Glory Kill mechanic originated as a "sync melee" system intended for Doom 4 and was developed early, becoming central to Doom's combat design.
- #013
Enemies in Doom were designed to visually resemble those of the original Doom games and to encourage the player to stay mobile.
- #014
Doom's story was written by Adam Gascoine, and director Martin told Noclip that the narrative was among the last parts of the game to be added.
- #017
Doom's SnapMap mode was developed together with Escalation Studios.
- #018
Post-release patches for Doom added a photo mode, an option to hold weapons in the center of the screen as in the original games, and support for the Vulkan API; the Vulkan patch was expected to make playable frame rates possible on older hardware, and benchmarks showed frame-rate improvements of up to 66% on AMD graphics cards with only minor changes for Nvidia cards.
Sources & editorial notes
Sources for the entries on this page
- Wikipedia Doom (2016 video game) — Wikipedia
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