The original 1993 Doom and its sister game Wolfenstein 3D from 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 that Doom developer 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, Doom creator John Romero once broke his own keyboard playing Quake, another game he helped developed. The company, now owned by Bethesda Softworks, has also dabbled in reboots, having revived both Doom and Quake in recent years, but does not have much experience when it comes to VR.
It appears the team at id Software has 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 as PROJECT 2021A at this point, has been given the rating of 18+, citing high impact violence, strong impact themes, and mild impact language. Doom has long been known as one of the most 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's Doom VFR. Back in 2013 id Software co-founder John Carmack actually left the company when 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 the Doom series 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.
As Doom VFR was the VR counterpart to 2016's Doom, it is possible that this new VR excursion could be the headset-required counterpart to last year's Doom Eternal. With the franchise as popular as ever (there are Doom skins available in Fall Guys after all), making a VR sister game to stand beside Doom Eternal certainly makes sense.
Still, others who follow the exploits of id Software will have their fingers crossed that this newest virtual reality game is a new Quake. The original Quake was one of the most influential early online games and many would love to see the series make the leap into VR. Whether id Software is cooking up a new Doom, a new Quake, 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.
Source: Australian Classification