Will DOOM be a DUD?

“Is it all fighting or is there a point?,” Says my non-gamer wife as we were watching gameplay from the new DOOM game shown at the Bethesda E3 stage show.

A simple question, that when asked, brought me back to reality and a sad realization that as much as I wanted to be excited that the godfather of FPS is making its comeback… again, what did we see that was truly innovative?

The game looks amazing graphically, they were sure to add plenty of callbacks to legendary DOOM weapons, and the blood and gore has been cranked up to eleven. There was no attention paid to story or characters, no mention of innovative game features or mechanics. We also were introduced to a teaser of DOOM multiplayer, which in reality looked like just another generic online shooter. The game modes mentioned were all ones we are all too familiar with in just about every other game.

Singularity in the FPS gaming world is drawing more and more near, and unfortunately, DOOM is not going to break that trend. You may say, “What about DOOM Snapmap??” to which I say Halo did this with Forge mode years ago. Then you might say, “What about those amazingly brutal finishers that you can do to weakened enemies, that will never get old!” To which I say, “ Remember Ryse: Son of Rome?”.

It’s worrisome to me that we received so few details about DOOM during the E3 stage show. No talk of a cooperative campaign, let alone an interesting story that goes beyond going from room to room slaughtering demons with BFG’s. For many, I’m sure this will be plenty to drum up excitement, but for the rest of us it looks like DOOM is just aiming to copy what everyone else has been doing for years.

What do you guys think? Did Bethesda do enough to get you excited for DOOM again?