Id Software revealed during E3 2019 that DOOM Eternal will come without traditional multiplayer in favor of Battlemode – a demonic 2v1 experience. Shedding some more light on its decision to do away with modes like Deathmatch, the developer told IGN that it wanted to create something original rather than follow trends.
According to Executive Producer, Marty Stratton, DOOM 2016’s multiplayer “kind of fell flat” because id Software tried something more traditional and it failed to offer the kind of DOOM experience players loved in the campaign.
Creative Director, Hugo Martin, added:
In 2016, we discovered we need to lead and not follow. In the single player, we lead. And we owned it, we made a DOOM game, we didn’t necessarily care about the trends or anything. In the multiplayer, we took a little bit of this and a little bit of that and it became obvious to fans and obvious to us that’s not what we wanted to do. We developed DOOM Eternal’s multiplayer internally and we really focused on making the best multiplayer possible. It feels like Doom but with our friends.
Stratton believes that DOOM 2016’s multiplayer didn’t quite make its mark because it didn’t include slayers or demons in a “meaningful” way.
“The cool thing about it [Battlemode] is it’s ripped straight from DOOM; it’s the combat players want and love, you’re familiar with the gameplay, playing as a Slayer,” he added.
Elsewhere in the interview, Stratton revealed that id Software is open to the idea of allowing cross-platform play and from a technical perspective, there’s nothing the studio has done that would prevent it from enabling the feature. He also hinted that the team is working on obtaining relevant permissions from console manufacturers.
DOOM Eternal will release on November 22, 2019 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Google Stadia, and PC.
[Source: IGN]
