frustrated with the lack of progress on Doom 4, ZeniMax came to Id with an ultimatum: make something happen, or else. The specifics of the threat are unclear, but there are plenty of rumors floating around [...]

What�s more likely, sources told me, is that if Id can�t get Doom 4 together, ZeniMax could clean house and refocus the company to work on tech like the Id Tech 5 engine, which is currently being used for multiple projects at studios owned by ZeniMax.

This partially explains the game's design. It seems that Doom 4 was designed around the SnapMap tech because Bethesda wants to use it on other games. Being able to quickly create a ton of levels, they can create a lot of games much faster. 

By the way, is there a game that is like that, without some enemies on your back or side?

People tend to piss and moan when an enemy spawns behind or to your flank and shoots you before you've seen it, so yeah, most modern linear shooters just present the enemies in sight and in front of you everywhere you go. The gameplay is always just: take cover, push forward, take cover, push forward, and so on until the game ends. 

i loved from the first quarter of Undying, where you can get attacked from behind and have to look at your back from time to time. Of course in Undying it was mostly used by melee enemies, but i can think they could use that on enemies with pistols, knifes or flamethrowers in modern military games, that give you enough time to react. 

is fine as long as a sight sound is perceptible.
As far as SnapMap being done to make levels for other Bethesda games faster is kind of odd since it seems to have so many limits, that and it can't do levels in an open evnironment. 

Are we certain that Snapmap can't do open-environment maps? I don't recall any explicit statement about that and this is now the second time I've read people saying it. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like a case of "id didn't show it doing open-environment maps therefore it can't do them". 

There is no definite NO, but he says that outdoor might be the reason why you can't recreate D4 in snapmap.
https://youtu.be/lgUB8aH9eZI?t=12m22s 

I wouldn't be surprised honestly, and with the way Snapmap does things with snapping premade things together, making actual outdoor environments which feel natural requires a level editor that can do better than snapping lego pieces together (see FPS Creator's abysmal level editor). 

On the other hand, we know from the Snapmap stream that there's a remake of e1m2 in there that's going to ship with the game, so some outdoor/open area support must exist.

I guess this all depends on what you actually mean when you say "outdoor" or "open". Likewise I have trouble imagining how it could support an Elder Scrolls type open world. A Rage/Wasteland open area is probably right out as well. But something akin to the open areas in the original Doom or Quake? Possibly. 

...who thinks that monster design sucks major balls? 

 

 

Some suck, some are okay, some are good. I love the Baron design, the Revenant is fine (I mean, they didn't mess up Skeleton). Cacodemon is okay, Mancubus is... eh. Hell Knight is fine. Pinky looks good in screenshots, but his wobbly walk like the dad from Dinosaurs, and the tail, is just stupid. Imp is dumb, Possessed and all the other dumb Lazarus Event enemies are so generic I don't even really have further comment for them.

But that Baron? Yeah, I like the Baron. 

Holy fuck. Those monsters are... cute. Pinky and Mancubus have those big, swoony eyes.
Might as well call themselves Walt IDsney software.

Baron is okayish, I suppose, but they're trying way too hard at mimicking th e original... 

I'd like if they had also included the pinky from the Doom movie (the one with a wheelchair as back legs). That was a badass design, and would work well with the D4 pinky's behavior, leaving room for the D4 pinky to behave like the classic one.

But, well, the melee-focused behavior of most D4 monsters is similar to the classic pinky behavior already. 

concept art

#14 is pretty sweet! 

Monsters shall be ugly.. else there are not monsters...

... said Captain Obvious 

About the "on classic Doom, demons on UAC were an accident while on Doom 4 the UAC is bringing them on on purpose" thing, in the Doom movie the UAC was also experimenting on them on purpose.

I still prefer the classic plot, though. 

I also prefer the "oh shit we stumbled on hell's legions by accident and they are mad at us" is cooler than "lets play nazi doctor on these demons and have it bite us in the ass" for what it matters to the game which should be not too much. 

That previously leaked trailer has been released as the official launch trailer. It seems they edited some things here and there, but it's mostly the same. 

Fuck yeah.

Was that purple lady the arch vile? Looks really barlowe-esque. 

Doom 4 automap feelings 

I saw a screenshot of a map made in SnapMap and guessed it was a recreation of exactly that map, turned out it was supposed to be Doom's E1M2. Then I saw screenshots of the automap from the singleplayer stream and they still remind me of that map-a bunch of quadrangle rooms and corridors that sprawl off into dead ends. 

I see they cut the shot of the Halo energy sword. 

https://youtu.be/f8aU4MYDsOQ