Doom 3 (PC, Xbox)

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Doom 3 (PC, Xbox).

Development Timeline#

2000

• June 1st - John Carmack announces that id Software's next project will be a reimagining of Doom via his .plan file.
• Late 2000 - Development of the game begins.

2001

• February 2001 - The game is shown off at Macworld 2001.

2002

• Late 2002 - The build of the game shown at E3 is leaked online by two employees of ATI Technologies.

2004

• July 14th - The game is announced to go gold.
• July 15th - A version for Mac OS X is confirmed.

2000#

John Carmack would update his .plan with an update about id's next game.¹

6/1/00 ------
Well, this is going to be an interesting .plan update.

Most of this is not really public business, but if some things aren't stated explicitly, it will reflect unfairly on someone.

As many people have heard discussed, there was quite a desire to remake DOOM as our next project after Q3. Discussing it brought an almost palpable thrill to most of the employees, but Adrian had a strong enough dislike for the idea that it was shot down over and over again.

Design work on an alternate game has been going on in parallel with the mission pack development and my research work.

Several factors, including a general lack of enthusiasm for the proposed plan, the warmth that Wolfenstien was met with at E3, and excitement about what we can do with the latest rendering technology were making it seem more and more like we weren't going down the right path.

I discussed it with some of the other guys, and we decided that it was important enough to drag the company through an unpleasant fight over it.

An ultimatum was issued to Kevin and Adrian(who control >50% of the company): We are working on DOOM for the next project unless you fire us.

Obviously no fun for anyone involved, but the project direction was changed, new hires have been expedited, and the design work has begun.

It wasn't planned to announce this soon, but here it is: We are working on a new DOOM game, focusing on the single player game experience, and using brand new technology in almost every aspect of it. That is all we are prepared to say about the game for quite some time, so don't push for interviews. We will talk about it when things are actually built, to avoid giving misleading comments.

It went smoother than expected, but the other shoe dropped yesterday.

Kevin and Adrian fired Paul Steed in retaliation, over my opposition.

Paul has certainly done things in the past that could be grounds for dismissal, but this was retaliatory for him being among the "conspirators".

I happen to think Paul was damn good at his job, and that he was going to be one of the most valuable contributors to DOOM.

We need to hire two new modeler/animator/cinematic director types. If you have a significant commercial track record in all three areas, and consider yourself at the top of your field, send your resume to Kevin Cloud.

2002#

The very first gameplay reveal of the game was showned during E3, featuring an early prototype build containing three demonstration levels and an introduction cutscene. This build ended up being leaked online by accident by two employees of ATI Technologies.

This video by MarphitimusBlackimus (Marphy Black) shows how this build was meant to be played: Watch on YouTube

During E3, a video called Doom III: The Legacy was shown. The video was produced by Fountainhead Entertainment, a company set up by John Carmack's then-wife Katherine Anna Kang. The video acts as a documentary of the series and features interviews with various developers of Doom 3. Trent Reznor is also featured in the video, as he was planned to provide sound effects and music for the game, his contributions were ultimately unused. Watch on YouTube

Story#

As shared in The Making of Doom 3 by the developpment team, the story of Doom 3 went through numerous changes before the final release. Originally written by science fiction writer Matthew Costello who also wrote the lore of Resurrection of Evil and the official novelisations of the game, numerous ideas and characters were scrapped or simplified before release, while others only ended up making an appearance in the official novels.

Major characters#

Doom Marine#

• According to the The Making of Doom 3 book, the playable marine was initially going to be a fully fleshed out character with a distinct personality, and would have talked during cutscenes and certain interactions. Believed to be too much of a contrast with the silent protagonist often associated with Doom, the idea was scrapped very early during production.
• In the Book, the Doom Marine has several quotes, inter monologues and full discussions with UAC employees that were meant to be in the game.
  • This ended up being revisited in the official novelisations of the game who feature a space marine by the name John Kane as the main protagonist. The main difference between John and the protagonist of the game are theirs names and ranks in the military; John Kane was initially a lieutenant before being demoted to private for insubordination shortly before his transfer of to Mars as punishment, while his game counterpart is an unnamed corporal who was selected for transfer out of his entire unit for unknown reasons.
• Official storybords depicted the marine wearing a helmet once acquiring his gear at Mars Underground, and would have kept it for the remaining of the game. The E3 prototype demo feature the marine wearing a helmet.

Elliot Swann#

• According to The Making of Doom 3 book, the original draft of the story had Swann playing a real sleazy lawyer who was made very obvious to only be interested in assuring maximised profits for the UAC and disregarding anything else. Set up as an anti-hero from the very beginning of the game and a character no one would initially like nor trust, this would later be reversed in the game when the player would discover upon finding Swann on his dying moments that his intentions were good.
• This earlier characterisation was later reintroduced in the novels

"When we started to write Swann's dialogue and formulate the conversations with Betruger, it became clear that we couldn't have Swann be a total asshole since it would be difficult to create tension between him and Betruger in the brief times that they talked. We later redesigned Swann as someone with more morals, someone still intrested in making sure the compagny's intrests were being considered, but someone who, amongs the chaos of the invasion, tried to retake control and restablish order." - Tim Willits about Elliot Swann ; The Making of Doom 3

Jack Campbell#

• While Jack Cambell's role remained mostly unchanged during development, The Making of Doom 3 book depicts him having the profile of a mercenary as opposed to being a soldier or a marine.
• Initially, Jack was to more closed off and visibly iritated by the counselor Elliot Swann, who he would have followed more out of obligation rather than out of the unyelding loyauty seen in the finished game.

"Not that I liked Campbell any better. The guy had the feel of a mercenary - someone who liked killing too much to be in an army. Armies have rules about when and where to kill." - The Doom Marine on Jack Campbell ; The Making of Doom 3

General Hayden#

• General Hayden is a character that was entirely removed from the game and served as the second main antagonist alongside Betruger, as revealed in The Making of Doom 3. Originally casted as the head of the military presence on Mars, he was going to be coordinating all the experiments with Dr. Betruger and ensuring that the interests of the marines were always prioritized. Hayden was initially planned to turn evil soon after the invasion and was also going to be the puppet master behind Kelly's downfall.
  • General Hayden's character was going to be a stereotypical over-the-top military commander gone demonically insane and presented as the primary antagonist from the get-go, with a planned boss fight taking place in Hell for the obtention of Soul cube. After his defeat, it would have be revealed that Betruger was the true mastermind behind the invasion.
  • Several of the actions and dialogues associated with Betruger in game were initially going to be done by Hayden, as he was planned to be the one creating the commandos leading them against the player, as well as destroying the bridge in Delta labs.
• Despite his removal from the game, General Hayden was still included in the official novels and served in his intended role. And his name ended up being reused for the character of Samuel Hayden in Doom 2016

"General Hayden was removed because we felt that the player should be introduced to the antagonist very soon after the game begins. We felt that all of the roles Hayden would fill, we could achieve equally well with Betruger. It simplified the character and left Swann as the only questionable one. With Hayden around, we worried that players might perceive Betruger as an afterthought, with less importance than we intended." - Tim Willits about General Hayden ; The Making of Doom 3

Malcolm Betruger#

• According to The Making of Doom 3 book, it was originally going to be revealed in the PDA logs of director William Banks found in Mars administration that Malcolm Betruger was actually a theologist rather than a scientist.
  • Because the rewrite of the story depicted Betruger as the antagonist from the start some rather than keeping his true motives ambiguous in the beginning, some of the information was completely removed while the rest were moved to be found much later in the PDA confessions of Ian McCormick in the Delta labs.
• Betruger's first public reveal depicts him with a very different design than seen in the finished game featuring a scrapped model with a prosthetic arm.
• The book also reveals that Betruger was going to be the final boss of the main campaign, encountered at the Hell Hole level where the Cyber Demon resides in the finished game. Due to the book specifically referring to him as a "True mastermind", it is possible that Betruger may have been initially planned to turn into the scrapped Spider Demon at the end of the game.

"Banks was a scientist. He knew test tubes and ions, not heaven and hell Through he seemed convinced that his teleportation machine had actually penetrated into the real Hell, he did not seem to know what the implications of scratching the Hell might be. So Union Aerospace contracted an expert in the field - Dr. Malcolm Betruger. Betruger wasn't a scientist at all; he was a theologian." - Quote from the Doom Marine on Malcom Betruger; The Making of Doom 3

Thomas Kelly/Sabaoth#

• According to The Making of Doom 3 book, the original intention for Sabaoth was that Sergeant Kelly's torso would be crucified onto a demon, which in turn would be fused with a tank. The demon Sabaoth would then use Kelly's military experience and knowledge to its advantage. Some of this concept, however, was lost in translation.
  • Kelly was showcased around at macworld 2001 geared up in an early design of the marine armor and wearing a scrapped earlier helmet design. A scrapped zombified Kelly was also shown to the public.
• Leftover code in the game's materials files suggest that Kelly was to be seen smoking cigars.

Minor characters#

Civilians#

• Storyboards in The Making of Doom 3 book shows that the Martian complex had both men and women personnel on site, including their zombified counterparts appearing after the invasion.
  • In the Book, it's briefly stated that life on Mars was so different from Earth that they jokingly began to refer to themselves as Martians.
  • The official novelisation of the game explained that entire families migrated over to the Martian base, including women and children.

Jonathan Ishii#

• According to The Making of Doom 3 book, Jonathan Ishii was initially planned to end their own life by shooting themselves in the head with a pistol, preferring to die rather than face the aftermath of the invasion. This ended up being changed to having Jonathan be zombified by a Soul Grabber as a way to better explain how zombification worked.

Mal Blackwell#

• According to The Making of Doom 3 book, the player would eventually meet a character by the name of Mal Blackwell on his passage thought the Alpha Labs. Described as an elderly man working on a console, Blackwell was going to explain how somebody had infected the computer systems with a virus that could compromise both power and light support. While busy keeping the systems running, the scientist would request the player to find his missing assistant Theresa Chasar who could perhaps on his way take over the Empro Plant.
  • While Blackwell never made an appearance in the finished game, his name is still present on the windows and door entry of the Delta Administrative Office in level Alpha Labs Sector Two where the player meets J. Edwards.

Theresa Chasar#

• According to The Making of Doom 3 book, Theresa Chasar was going to be presented as an Engineer and assistant of Dr. Mal Blackwell. Her role was also reduced significantly before the final release: Found by her lonesome while crying in despair by the Doom Marine, Theresa was going to give the player context on replacing the cooling rods of the antimather chambers in the level Empro plant and that failing to do so would destroy the entire planet. Theresa would then guide the player to through the facility, unlocking doors for solving minor puzzles together. She would eventually succumb to the same fate as she does in the finished game.
  • Considering female employees and their zombified forms were once considered for the game, Theresa's PDA's logs on being the sole woman on Mars were likely implemented after the idea was scrapped.
  • The book also mentions how the Lost Soul that emerged from her body looks alot like her own head.

I entered the administrative area and heard the sound of a woman crying. It was not a sad cry, but rather the sound of helplessness. I moved through the loby, ignioring the dead scientists that layed crushed against the walls. The woman was hiding in an office, curled up on the desk. When she saw me, she begged me not to hurt her. "You don't need to worry about me"; I said "I'm one of the good guys." She looked at me and her gaze fell on my shotgun. She did not look certain as she climbed down from the desk. Prehaps she was willing to test me, but qhe did not trust me."You're the missing assitant. Blackwell told me about you." Hearing the name Blackwell relaxed her. "Blackwell told me to look for you." "He's alive?" "Alive and refusing to leave his workstation. He's locked himself in with his computers... says there is a virus in the systems and that he's the only one who can keep the system running." Now the gal actually smiled. "That's Blackwell" She said. "Okay, so now that we know we are on the same side, what do theses sirens mean?" I asked. "It's coming from the antimatter chambers." She said, looking grim again. "Something must have happened to the cooling rods." "Just for the fun of it, let's pretend your dealing with a big, dumb Marine who doesn't know anything about cooling rods or antimatter chambers. How big of a problem are we talking about?" As I asked this, there was a power tremor. "There won't be much left of Mars if we don't shut that off. She said. "The Mars city part will survive, right?" I asked, thinking we could put on some space gear and drive a rover to safety. "The entire planet will be destroyed." She said. "I know how to get to the chamber. Follow me."
- Initial encounter between the Doom Marine and Theresa Chasar ; The Making of Doom 3

Gameplay#

Levels#

Mars#

• According to the "Making of Doom 3" book, the Dark Star ship the player is first seen walking out of at the beginning of the game was also planned to be discharging several boxes later revealed to contain various religious objects.
  • This was simplified into a computer screen present at the landing bay the player can interact with.
• According to the book, Mars City was going to be much bigger than seen in the finished game, featuring a chapel and living quarters. This was removed to save resources and later replaced with the infirmary.
• Initially the player was to spend significantly longer time in Mars City than in the final game, having to go through questioning to make sure they weren't a spy and give out a blood sample to avoid bacterial contamination to be allowed entry onto the complex. Once inside, the player was to be instructed by the receptionist to bring his bag to his living quarters before being ordered by Kelly to report to Marine HQ.
  • Mars city was shortened and simplified out of fear of boring the player and making him lose interest.
• According to the book a hallucination of a Flaming zombie would have taken place in a corridor in front of the player and other marines while on his way to Mars Underground.
  • This would have encouraged the player to make a stop by the scrapped the chapel, were a man could have been seen praying while sobbing profoundly.
• According to the book and some leftover code in the finished game mentioning missing animations, Jonathan Ishii, the crazy scientist the player was sent to find at the beginning of the game was initially going to shoot themselves with a pistol rather than turning into a zombie, choosing to end their own life rather than facing the aftermath of the invasion. This was changed in order to better explain how zombification works via the Soul grabbers.
  • Upon establishing communication with Sargeant Kelly in Marine HQ both characters would share their own encounters with zombies, theorising that the logical explanation for their behavior could be drugs.
• According to the book, Imps were initially not present in Mars Underground, which was originally solely going to feature zombies. Imps would have instead been introduced much later in Mars City post invasion after reaching Marine HQ and ending the conversation with Sergeant Kelly. The Doom marine would have referred to the Imps as "Space aliens" before learning of their demonic origins.
  • The Fat zombie would have been introduced in Mars Underground as the very first monster seen by the player, taking the form of a possessed janitor.
• The Shotgun and Machinegun were going to be introduced much later than in the finished game. The Shotgun specifically being first obtained from the dying marine seen in Mars Administration. During development it was decided to change this because the player would be facing up against possessed security guards (Who drops ammunitions) from the get-go. So the Shotgun was instead moved to be obtained much earlier in the finished game.

Delta Labs#

• According to the book, the Delta Labs were originally going to be one singular level as opposed to being split in several parts. This was done due to technical limitations.
• The Delta Labs were going to feature a stealth section were the player would have to avoid security cameras watched by a "zombie security guard". Upon being spotted on camera, the player would be assaulted by Commandos, while firing weapons would have attracted monsters. This was scrapped for being too much of a deviation from the classic Doom gameplay experience.

Hell#

• Additional levels were at one point meant to take place in hell, as the only hell themed level in the game is called Hell1 in the files.
  • Presumably those levels might have ended in a Boss fight against Barons of Hell.
  • According to the book, the scrapped antagonist General Hayden would have been fought and defeated at the end of the final Hell level. How the fight would have played out remains unknown.

Monsters#

Monsters encountered in game#

Zombies

• According to The Making of Doom 3, Id software had three basic zombies (Excluding the Fat Zombie who is its own distinct enemy type much like the Commandos and the Sawer) that each used their own model and texture early on during development (As opposed to recycling head models and bodygroups as seen in the finished game). One of theses being the unused Maintenance zombie Seen in various promotional trailers, the E3 prototype build and even in the file of the finished game. Theses were scrapped in favor of the generic zombies seen in the finished game as they offered more variety.
  • Those earlier zombies (And the Fat Zombie) had the ability to get up a certain amount of time after being gunned down. Labbeled as Zombie_ressurection in the prototype build, It's unknown why this feature was removed.
  • Female zombies were once considered but ended up being scrapped for reasons unknown. A single file in the game makes references to this, simply titled monster_zombie_fem.def containing leftover code for an unfinished monster'.

Maggot

• According to The Making of Doom 3 book, the Maggot went through two earlier iterations before setting on the third and finalized design as Id Software struggled to come up with good ideas for the ennemy.
  • Not much is known about those earlier concepts, but the code for the two earlier concepts was found in the 2003 E3 build prototype of the game and were supposed to have some kind of ranged attack.

Wraith

id Software wanted the Wraith to form out of a cloud of insects, to hide in bodies and such, but this concept was scrapped since the player would not be able to tell what the cloud was in the game's dark environments.

Archvile

The Archvile's initial model was repurposed for the Vulgar, as revealed in the December 2002 issue of PC Gamer magazine.

Lost Souls

• According to The Making of Doom 3, the Lost Soul's introduction was initially planned to be much longer, with the Engineer Theresa Chasar following the player around for some time rather than dying immediately during their first encounter. She would have progressively shown signs of pain and aggression before eventually meeting the same fate she does in the finished game.
  • The Book also mentions how Theresa's own head ended up becoming the Lost Soul itself.
• The book also makes a distinction between the Lost souls and the flying ghost skulls seen during the initial invasion who zombifies any human they touch, their official names are Soul grabbers.

Scrapped Monsters#

Baron of Hell

According to The Making of Doom 3 book, the Baron of Hell was originally planned to appear in the finished game but ended up being scrapped. It was to be introduced in a cutscene during a vision where four Barons would have broken the Soul Cube into four fragments before scattering, guarding each one of the fragments. The player would have then been traveling through Hell and slaughter the Barons to recover the fragments and reassemble the Soul Cube.

In the book, the exclusion of the Barons can be tied to the Soul Cube. During development it was decided that the importance of the Soul Cube in the story was being lessened by having it broken in several fragments as opposed to be directly available to the player in it's completed form. As such, the original concept was abandoned in favor of the Guardian boss fight, which was deemed to be more rewarding.

An early design of the Baron of Hell was also showcased during [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macworld/iWorld#2001| Macworld 2001]. According to Twitter posts by artist and character designer Kenneth Scott, this design was a "failed prototype" for the artstyle and workflow used for the monsters that survived into the final game.

Arachnotron

The Arachnotron was originally planned to appear in the finished game but ended up being scrapped for unknown reasons, with its concept art revealed during the 2002 E3 presentation, alongside the 2002 alpha demo.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Spiderdemon Spiderdemon]

• The Spiderdemon was originally planned to appear in the finished game but ended up being scrapped for unknown reasons, with its concept art revealed during the 2002 E3 presentation, alongside the 2002 alpha demo.
• Thanks to The Making of Doom 3 book, it has been revealed that Doctor Betrüger was originally going to be the final boss of the main campaign and would have been encountered in the final level Hell Hole, presumably turning onto a demon in front of the player. It's theorised that the scrapped Spider Demon may have been the intended Boss fight, one of many concepts that was later reused in Doom 2016.
  • The idea of Betrüger being a boss was later revisited in the official expansion Resurrection of Evil were he appears as the Maledict.

Cyber Orc

The art gallery for the Xbox port of the game features a render of a higher poly head model for a cut enemy called Cyber Orc. No further information regarding this cut monster was ever revealed.

Possessed Apes

According to The Making of Doom 3 book, the player would eventually face, as unbelievable as it sounds, demon-possessed apes once reaching the Delta Labs and would later become reoccuring enemies. Featured in official storyboards, they were initially test subjects used by the science team for the teleportation experiments.

Weapons#

Scrapped Weapons#

• According to the Making of Doom 3 book, id Software had experimented with several new weapon ideas throughout Doom 3's development but decided to stick to the core Doom arsenal players were familiar with.
  • The leaked prototype build from E3 2002 contains working throwable flares that glowed green once hitting the ground. Albeit unfinished and lacking a proper model these could be obtained via the console command. It's unknown what lead to their removal.

"We played with a lot of weird weapons like slime throwers and mather converters, but in the end we decided to make some very straightforward weapons." - Tim Willits

Weapons found in game#

Machine Gun

• According to this book, the Machine Gun initially dealt the same amount of damage as the pistol for each shot.
• Trailers for the game pictured the Machine Gun with a dark gray color scheme rather than the greem one seen in game.

Shotgun

Numerous trailers showcased the shotgun with a completely different design who ended up being scrapped before the release of the game.

Chaingun

According to this book, the Chaingun used to deal 30 damage for each shot as opposed to 20 in the finished game. It's rev-up time was to be slower as well.

Plasma Gun

id Software experimented with the Plasma Gun being able to charge up shots. Firing fast would deal less damage but firing slower would do more. It's unknown why this was removed for the finished game.

Soul Cube

• According to the Making of Doom 3 book, id Software has originally planned for the Soul Cube require 10 demon souls to charge it. This was later reduced to five because it was found to be annoying during playtesting.
  • The Soul cube was initially planned to follow the player around rather than holding it in it's hands. It would have floated above ground and phase throught walls and any other surfaces to do so. Why this was scrapped in unknown.

References#

TODO

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_3
• Trent Reznor's involvement.
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20070514173115/http://www.nin.com/access/7_21_04/index.php
• The Making of Doom 3 and the History of id Software