Leaked Trailer for a Horror-Themed Doom 4 Appears Online

A concept trailer that was recently released for the scrapped Doom 4 game reveals a horror-oriented take on the renowned demon-slaying franchise that was never released. Assets from the abandoned version of the game have been seen on the internet on multiple occasions, most recently in the form of some Doom 4 images which were revealed in the spring of 2022.

Back in 2008, John Carmack, co-founder of id Software and ex-Meta VR Executive Consultant, made it known that pre-production of Doom 4 had begun. However, five years later, the game was canceled. Eventually, the studio chose to go in a different direction and released a reboot of Doom in 2016.

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In the past, id Software executives had mentioned that the early stages of the game were too comparable to Call of Duty; however, the recently surfaced 2012 concept trailer, which was shared by the same source who recently revealed Doom 4 gameplay footage, does not support these internal reports. This 33-second video mainly concentrates on the horror aspects, displaying scenes with an appalling wall composed of cadavers, Xenomorph-like adversaries, and a variety of other zombified creatures. Thus, the concept trailer looks more like a first-person Dead Space game rather than a typical Call of Duty game, at least superficially.

The trailer for this new release has a definite suburban horror feeling to it, and this is intentional. It has been reported that Doom 4 was supposed to take place on Earth, and the player character would have fought back a demonic invasion as part of a guerilla force. This is quite reminiscent of Doom 2 from 1994, as it also revolved around a similar conflict.

The team behind Doom decided to restart their project due to the gameplay being too similar to the Call of Duty franchise. This reboot was released for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC in 2016 and then came to the Nintendo Switch the following year. The game was successful, leading up to the 2020 release of Doom Eternal.

Around twelve months ago, Microsoft purchased ZeniMax Media, the parent company of id Software. Since then, the tech titan has left its Xbox Game Studios family to its own devices, with no new Doom titles being released. In April, though, Bethesda, which is also owned by ZeniMax Media, revealed a Doom game for smartphones. This game is due out later this month.