Doom III Storytelling

Doom III will depart from standard id games in another important way. There are plans for a plot. The game engine’s amazing sound and video capabilities (see Doom Technology) allows the artists and designers to create a terrifying atmosphere and focus on the environment’s role in the game, rather than using many monsters (Doom) or other players (Quake III) to create fear. GameSpy has a full article, DOOM III: The Very First Look, with more details.

Watching the video (see Doom III E3 videos), id looks like they’re returning to monsters in the style of the fiend (see right) from Quake I, with “… many seemingly non-human creatures present — many of whom attacked with quick, lunging attacks, and were all modeled and animated exquisitely.”

Further good news is that the “The game has already been storyboarded from start to finish” and “id has enlisted the services of science fiction writer Matthew Costello to pen the game story and dialogue. Costello is no rookie to this sort of thing — you may recognize him as the writer of the 7th Guest and The 11th Hour games.” Graeme Devine, now a programmer and project manager at id (he wrote the new sound engine) was a founder of Trilobyte, who made the 7th Guest and 11th Hour. Furthermore:

“You can expect the plot to be furthered along through a combination of in-game scripted scenes and in-engine cinematics, but nothing rendered — everything will happen inside the new engine.”

The dynamic lighting enhances the storytelling significantly, helping set the mood:

“… there’s a scene where a scientist sits in front of a computer, which casts a glow upon his face in addition to the other light already present in the room. As the computer display changes, so does the overall lighting, similar to how a television will light up a dark room. Shadows also play a big role — at a number of points in the demo, you’d see a shadow approach before the actual enemy, giving you a chance to react before being attacked.”

The new animation system is skeletal with blended animations, with “lots of animations for eyes and mouths, as well as syncing, and they’ve also developed an entirely new scripting system as well as a “fairly robust” camera system.”

The new physics engine is also extremely robust. In the demo, “one scene shows a character falling down a flight of steps, reacting to each step along the way”, so maybe the days of watching bodies float off the edge of a set of stairs are gone. “another [scene] shows boxes getting knocked off a shelf and bouncing to the floor in an entirely realistic manner.”

The interactivity with the environment doesn’t just stop at larger objects, like stairs, boxes, tables, etc.:

“One of the more interesting technical innovations we saw is a new GUI system that allows for Flash-like animation on any surface, and can be completely interactive. Unlike most current games, where a keypad or switch might be portrayed with a few simple textures, these items can now be presented with much more detail.”