For many gamers, Doom will have been their earliest memory of first person shooter action, arriving in 1993 with the survival horror debut that kick started the long legacy of gruesome shoot-em-ups that have followed. However, from it being pimped out every year with a marginal update in the series to eek out every last drop of money from the husk of its cold and soulless shell, it’s actually had a very tight release schedule with just three significant entries in its canon. The good news though is that we’re about to get the long awaited fourth installment to reboot the franchise and details are starting to trickle out about the upcoming hellfire blast-fest.
Release date
Doom will continue to be developed by id Software for the reboot of the series, continuing the concept that they first created back in ’93. While an official release date hasn’t been confirmed by them as of yet, we’re expecting them to make some significant announcements shortly with a full reveal of the gameplay planned for E3 2015, where they’ll be hosting a press briefing alongside publishers Bethesda Softworks. While it is possible for the game to arrive this year, our bet is that it will more than likely be a 2016 release date in the end.
Plot
Again, we’ll know a lot more post E3, but in general you can put money on the game following a similar trajectory as previous installments when it comes to the storyline that sits behind it. Expect this to see you taking on the role of a space marine and going up against all sorts of crazy monsters in a bid to restore order and keep the dominant forces of the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) under control. If you’re not old enough to have played any of the previous games in the series just imagine something of a hybrid between Halo, Destiny and The Evil Within and you won’t be too far from getting up to speed with the upcoming reboot.
Gameplay
Doom is set to be another classic first person shooter horror survival from id Software with bags of pace, action and weaponry. It’s futuristic and old school horror all wrapped up into one, so you’ll be battling it out with some of the ugliest monsters you’ve ever seen – the Revenant in the teaser trailer below is just a small taster of what you will be getting yourself in for – with some of the best guns, ammo and tech you can imagine.
In addition to the standard single-player story mode, the return of the game will be the first time gamers will be able to battle it out in online multi-player mode since Doom 3. However, a hell of a lot has changed since then and it’ll be the first opportunity to harness the latest technological advances to play multiplayer on a grand scale within the settings of the Doom universe.
With games like Titanfall and the advances in the Halo series taking things to the next level in terms of player dynamics and controls, things have also moved on from the simple forwards, back, strafe simplicity of yesteryear, so there will be a big challenge for the reboot to step things up. However, it will also need to stick close to its roots if it’s to stand out from the crowd in any meaningful way.
Graphics
From the look of the teaser video below, it would appear that Doom has stepped very firmly into the advanced graphics capabilities of next generation gaming for the Xbox ONE, PlayStation 4 and PC. It’ll be interesting to see just how far they take this during the E3 gameplay reveal that’s coming up, but we’ll be surprised if it isn’t eye wateringly detailed with blood, gore and crazy sick monsters a plenty.
First impressions
We’re really looking forward to this one, not least of all because of the integrity that the team behind it bring to gaming. It also has a significant nostalgia kick with the game dating so far back in the history of gaming, and it’ll be interesting to see how its developers can bring it up to date for the latest tech consoles. We’re expecting this one to be high up on the agenda of post E3 chat as we start to see more and more of the actual gameplay.
 reboot preview from the computer games section of Tuppence Magazine, with the latest on the release date, gameplay, graphics and storyline.){kind=link}