First Doom 4 Unedited Footage Reveals How Horrifying It Could Be

If you wonder why Doom 4 never saw the light of day, the latest unedited footage from its gameplay could explain to you the reason behind the project’s cancelation.

When it was announced back in 2008, fans were extremely excited for Doom 4 as a brand new entry from the revolutionary shooter series of id Software with cutting-edge visuals at the time.

That being said, the life cycle of Doom 4 wasn’t long enough to see the light of day, as the project was then canceled and took a new direction leading to Doom (2016), which was a reboot of the series.

Recently, some unedited Doom 4 footage has been shared by Noclip on YouTube, showcasing a brief gameplay scene where the player is confronting a number of demonic creatures in a dark sewer. Even comparing this brief footage with Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal will easily explain to you why Doom 4 was canceled.

The first thing that probably catches your attention in this footage is the fact that the player character doesn’t wear thick armor. You can see the naked hands of the character holding an old shotgun. Also, the gameplay doesn’t seem as fast-paced and chaotic as the recent Doom titles. You can only spot two demons in the sewer, who are also very different from the typical enemy design of a Doom game.

The demon that crawls on the sewer ceiling in the footage above will probably remind you of Lickers in Resident Evil rather than a demon from Doom.

To be honest, if I was shown this footage without any labels or titles, it would be too hard for me to guess that it was a canceled Doom project. And that’s probably the reason why id Software decided not to release Doom 4 at the time.

The launch of Doom (2016) instead of Doom 4 still wasn’t a huge success for id Software at the time, but the studio managed to exceed the fan expectations once again when they delivered Doom Eternal a few years earlier. So, it is safe to say that Doom (2016) was probably a much better base for the series in its new direction rather than Doom 4.