“I would like to thank them” - Doom 2016’s creative director responds to that notorious Polygon video
Back in 2016, Polygon put out a video showcasing the first 30 minutes of Doom, a highly-anticipated return to the id Software shooting series.
The video was widely ridiculed online because it was clearly being played by someone who’s not used to first-person shooters. You can tell by the way they rarely look around while moving about, using the sticks independently.
As always in video games, the discourse led to harassment, and things got so bad that comments and likes were turned off on the video. You can see it below, but if you clicked this story you’ve either seen the video or videos mocking it already.
During a GameLab interview, creative director Hugo Martin spoke at length about feedback. During that chat, he said that critical feedback is far more valuable to him as a creator than praise, and the video Polygon put out - showing someone struggling against the design - was more valuable than videos of people playing like a pro.
“I actually don’t think it’s their problem at all. It’s our problem,” Martin said about the video. “I would thank them, we learned the most from that. You don’t want Doom to be for a select group of highly skilled players. We wanted to make sure Doom Eternal would be for everyone.
“It’s like sucking on a lemon - I like reading the negative press. Every discovery is like, ‘we’re gonna get better’.”
From all of the negative feedback, id Software built up a picture of the areas they needed to “tighten up the overall design”, and those lessons were applied to Doom Eternal. Presumably that’s why they added the Marauder…
Check out our Doom Eternal review for the VG247 impressions.