Supergiant dev speaks to the 'restraint and humility' of id's new Doom

- Supergiant Games' Greg Kasavin.

Doom is back. 23 years after releasing the original, id Software has shipped a new Doom that's earning accolades from folks across the industry.

Game developer Greg Kasavin is one of those folks, and in a new guest editorial published on PCGamer the longtime Supergiant Games (Bastion, Transistor) developer shares some thoughts on the high points of Doom's design that fellow game developers may appreciate.

"Today it's Doom asking the hard-hitting questions about reloading, about cover, about health, and story, and so on," writes Kasavin, after recounting how the original Doom established principles of good first-person shooter design that have since been questioned and iterated upon by legions of game designers over the years. 

Now, opines Kasavin, id has come full circle and interrogated both the original Doom and the first-person shooter genre at large in designing its latest release, which he paints as less a remake or a reboot than a homage.

"With boldness and restraint, it even asks such questions of the original Doom's design: What if you could jump and climb as quickly as you could run? What if your enemies could navigate the environments about as effortlessly as you yourself?" Kasavin asks. "Doom isn't known for its storytelling, but the opening moments of this game were some of the most efficient storytelling in games that I've played in a long time."

Kasavin's full analysis, which includes further thoughts on the new Doom's design and its ability to tell a story through first-person character animations, can be read in full over on PCGamer.