The original 1993Doomand its sister gameWolfenstein 3Dfrom 1992 are well known for thrusting PC gaming away from side-scrolling platformers and into a shooter-heavy third dimension. Now, in 2021, it appears thatDoomdeveloper id Software has its eyes set on making a game in the 3D space of virtual reality.
id Software has long been known for creating groundbreaking, difficult first-person shooters. In fact, out of sheer frustration,DoomcreatorJohn Romero once broke his own keyboard playingQuake, another game he helped developed. The company, now owned by Bethesda Softworks, has also dabbled in reboots, having revived bothDoomandQuakein recent years, but does not have much experience when it comes to VR.
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It appears the team atid Softwarehas been secretly working on something, however, as on January 22 it filed a rating for Australian classification for a project described as a virtual reality computer game. The project, known only asPROJECT 2021Aat this point, has been given the rating of 18+, citing high impact violence, strong impact themes, and mild impact language.Doomhas long been known as one of themost brutal games ever made, so this 18+ rating should come as no surprise to longtime fans. What may come as a surprise, though, is that id Software is working on a virtual reality game at all.
The company has long held off on stepping into this newest of third dimensions, only dipping it toes into the well once before with 2017’sDoom VFR. Back in 2013id Software co-founder John Carmack actually left the companywhen he felt he would not be able to work on VR projects if he were to remain. While it is unknown whether this new virtual reality game will be part of theDoomseries or something entirely new, it appears that it will contain the same violence and gore fans have come to expect from id and bring it all onto a VR headset for only the second time in the company’s history.
AsDoom VFRwas the VR counterpart to 2016’sDoom, it is possible that this new VR excursion could be the headset-required counterpart to last year’sDoom Eternal. With the franchise as popular as ever (there areDoomskins available inFall Guysafter all), making a VR sister game to stand besideDoom Eternalcertainly makes sense.
Still, others who follow the exploits of id Software will have their fingers crossed that this newest virtual reality game is a newQuake. The originalQuakewas one of the most influential early online gamesand many would love to see the series make the leap into VR. Whether id Software is cooking up a newDoom, a newQuake, or something else entirely, fans can almost certainly count on the fact that they’ll soon be seeing monster guts in a virtual environment as if they were really there.
