When id Software announced that it would be delaying Doom Eternal from 2019 into early 2020, a lot of fans were disappointed. The game looked absolutely stellar and impressions from E3 had expectations through the roof. This could be the Doom to end all Doom's, but we would have♒ to be patient for almost half a year. According to executive producer Marty Stratton, that delay was ultimately for the best.
Speaking to VG 24/7 at a recent demo event, Stratton said, "I say it's the best game we've ever made. I don't think I'd say that if we didn't have that extra time." He explained that the delay wasn't to add additional content, but more to iron out any and all bugs. The extra time allowed the studio to stop crunching as hard and focus on making sure Eternal launched in as good of a state as it could.
"It allowed us to do a lot of polishing, hardening♓ of the back-end systems and we do testing throughout where we bring in people externally," Stratton detailed. "We did a couple of additional versions of those and made a couple of additions to the game, just balance-type things and patching up a couple of exploits."
As for crunch, Stratton stressed that id's leadership encourages developers to take the time they ne༺ed to recharge. Many willingly choose to work later, though. "We really truly do try and be very respectful of peoples' time and lives. We have very dedicated people t꧑hat just choose to work a lot in many cases...We want it to live up to our expectations and consumer expectations."
That said, he admits that some amount of crunch is necessary. For id, they have different teams that work in phases to make sure no one is being spread thin. One team crunches, then after they are finished, the next will come in and continue. It may not be the best solution around, but the developers at id Software all just want Doom Eternal to come out great. "We work very hard and we'll put in extra time to do that. Sometimes when we just get the extra time we do it anyways because we want it to 🍌be tha🌠t much better."
Rounding out the interview, VG 24/7 asked id about when the Switch port of Eternal would be launching. Stratton didn't have anything concrete to reveal but noted that it won't be too far behind the other versions. He said both id and Panic Button are working hard on getting it right and that p🍬layers won't have to wait that long.
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