What appears to have started out as more of a Call of Duty-esque game, Doom 4 seemed to be a perpetuation of that cash cow that was the first-person war simulator. Fortunately, that’s not what the end product was, and the full reboot of Doom in 2016 was met with massive praise, as was the follow-up Doom Eternal. Some may not be aware that the reboot started out as something else, but some new footage from this scrapped project has been doing the rounds lately.
Uploaded by the YouTube channel NoClip, a number of assets from the early stages of Doom 4‘s development show the kind of direction that the game was heading in at that time. It shows some gameplay, demonstrating some of the action sequences as the player moves through a low-rendered city that contains a downed helicopter, while fighting off a bunch of monsters.
It looks a million miles away from what we would eventually get. However, other aspects do suggest that some of it did survive to make it into the 2016 reboot. For example, a series of storyboards shows what the opening to Doom 4 would have been like. From the looks of things, it would have been the same as the reboot, in that the Doomslayer is strapped to a slab, whereby they then release themselves before a horde of enemies can overpower them.
Overall, it’s a pretty interesting piece of footage. It even shows off some early “glory kills,” which thankfully did make it into what was released. You can check out the full footage of the canceled Doom 4 game below.