While Bethesda has previously conceded that an earlier version of Doom 4 did not "exhibit the quality" the publisher and fans of the series expect but it seems the house of Fallout is more confident about the game following the success of Machine Games' Wolfenstein: The New Order.
Referring to Wolfenstein, Bethesda's Pete Hines told MCV that "it was a bit of a tarnished brand. And we knew that. The last couple of games were either 'ok' or 'not great'. It wasn't a franchise where people were desperate for the next one. Wolfenstein isn't Uncharted. We knew this would take some explaining. But developer Machine Games has now untarnished the IP."
The New Order was well received by fans and critics (we awarded the game a 9/10 rating in our review) and Machine Games has expressed interest in developing a sequel. As for Doom, Hines continued:
"We view that similarly to Wolfenstein. Because it's been so long since the last Doom game. We are going in as if we need to prove ourselves all over again. We have no free passes. Nobody will assume this is going to be awesome.
"We are going to have to prove that this is something that's going to be fun and different that you need to pay attention to. That has to be our default position, we can't be: 'It's Doom, of course you're going to play it'. But that just makes us work harder."
Doom 4 will have a beta on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One – access to which came with copies of Wolfenstein. While The New Order was released on PS3 and Xbox 360, players on those console will need to upgrade if they want to take part in the beta which does not currently have a release date.
While Bethesda has yet to announce platforms for the game, the beta systems would seem to suggest where the game is headed. Doom 4's only teaser trailer has confirmed that more information will be made available at Quakecon later this month.
