Last year,DOOM Eternalwas slated for a 2019 release before it wasdelayed to March 19, 2020in order to ensure a quality product. In a recent podcast, a senior executive at Bethesda gave some insight into what exactly caused the delay.
In USGamer’s Branching Narratives podcast, Pete Hines, Bethesda’s senior vice president of global marketing and communications, spoke about a variety of topics. One of the more interesting ones is about the exact reasonDOOM Eternalwas delayed. It turns out of one of the major reasons for the delay was because of the heavily negative receptionFallout 76.
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It’s no secret thatFallout 76had a very rocky reception riddled with bugs and low-quality duffel bags, and Bethesda didn’t want to make the same mistakes again. “We said, ‘These are not ready, and we’re not going to make another mistake, and we’re going to take the extra time even though that time hurts, and is painful, and you miss a holiday,” Hines said. “DOOMEternal was so much better for it, and theresponse toWastelanderswas so much better for the extra time.”
In addition to talking about Bethesda’s decision to delayDOOM Eternal, Pete Hines remarks about the company trying something new withDeathloop, the upcoming PlayStation 5 gamedeveloped by Arkane Studios about an assassin trying to escape the titularGroundhog Day-esque time loop by killing and avoiding being killed. “Even if it’s just a one-0ff and they go back to doing other things, they’re still better for the experience, and they take away new learnings.” As for some of their biggest upcoming projects, likeStarfieldandThe Elder Scrolls 6, he said “Yeah, I’m not telling you anything.”
Even with the extra time devoted to ensuringDOOM Eternalwas a great game, it didn’t come without controversy. In an update released sometime after the initial launch, Bethesda added Denuvo Anti-Cheat to their game, which theypromptly removed in the game’s next updateafter a massive backlash from players. As well as using a kernel-mode driver to scan for cheats, which has the potential to be used for monitoring and data collection, many were upset about Bethesda dropping this new software without prior warning.
DOOM Eternalis available on PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One, with a Switch port coming sometime in the future.
