It’s always fascinating to get a peek at the cutting room floor. Some video game projects start up slightly differently from what we get in the marketplace. Sometimes, we might see a project get altogether scrapped and rebooted. This was the case for the Doom franchise. Before Doom 2016 was released, developers were actually working on a game they dubbed Doom 4.
Doom 4 was eventually scrapped in 2013, but at the time, it looked like developers were interested in bringing out a remake of Doom II. This was set up to be a fight on Earth from an invasion of hell. Meanwhile, it also looked as if the developers were a little more interested in bringing out a gritty military shooter experience. While more game details are still likely tucked away, plenty of them have reached the public.
We even saw some prototype gameplay footage of the game a few years back. But now it looks like more NDAs are expiring for the Doom 4 project. Crispies on X has been working on archiving everything they can on this canceled project in hopes the media will not be lost forever. As a result, they have managed to come across more concept art images and footage.
We have everything from new concept art for a human possessed by a human to different environmental areas, including NYC Grand Central Station being taken over by hell. You can even find a small snippet of footage of a dev working with idTech 5 environment art using Rage and Doom 4 assets.
What’s even more interesting is that props found in Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal stem back to Doom 4. In particular, you’ll find assets related to a birthday party. It’s a slight nod to internal developers attached to the game project.
With more NDAs expiring, perhaps we’ll learn more about what developers intended for the game. At any rate, while there is bound to be plenty of interest in what we almost got instead of Doom 2016, more focus is on the next installment. Doom: The Dark Ages is quickly approaching its release date. Players can expect this upcoming game installment to land on May 15, 2025, for the PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S platforms.
