Concept Trailer For The Canceled Doom 4 Has Leaked

A 33-second concept trailer for the scrapped Doom 4 has leaked on YouTube. It reflects the starkly-different approach the developers were taking for the fourth game in the franchise. We can see the more horror-oriented action gameplay, with the trailer putting a lot of emphasis on frightening demons.

Crispies on YouTube has leaked the footage. The trailer concept is dated 2012 and that does match other reports about this canceled version of Doom. After this, id Software scrapped this version of the game after realizing it was moving in the wrong direction.

Doom 2016 was a major success for Bethesda Softworks and id Software. It brought the franchise back to form and received universal critical acclaim. Moreover, the game was a financial success, selling almost a million copies in a month.

Probably the best result of the FPS game was how it set the basis for a new era of the franchise. Doom Eternal, its 2020 sequel, sold three times more units at launch and brought in over $450 million in revenue, even with the colder reception. But, even the brilliant 2016 title had some problems in production early on.

Developer id Software announced the game way back in 2008 as neither a reboot nor a sequel to Doom 3. After not getting much more detail for years, Kotaku published an article exposing how Doom 4 was in development hell.

The original game was going to take place on Earth and was similar to the Call of Duty franchise in mechanics and would take a cinematic approach.

Leaked screenshots that came out in 2015 also backed this up and the expose said Doom 4 lacked personality. In 2011, id Software ended up canceling the game because of this very reason and completely restarted development. The developer realized that the cinematic direction was wrong and that it had mismanaged the game.

Hence, this initial version of Doom 4 did not see the light of day as it was supposedly “lame” and a far cry from the original Doom.

Like this new leaked trailer, we have only learned more about this version of the game through leaks. Screenshots also came out in 2022, giving us more proof for the Call of Duty-like approach.

Rather than making it a fun action shooter where you kill demons, the devs originally made it a realistic depiction of a hellish invasion on Earth, as per creative director Hugo Martin. Kevin Cloud, the creative director of the original concept said id Software realized it was going in a direction “fans wouldn’t like“. After seeing this trailer, we have to agree with him.

Moving the setting from an uprising on Earth to the UAC on Mars was an idea that worked really well. The trailer and the original idea represented an interesting concept, but many would agree that the game we got was much better.