At QuakeCon, id Software revealed that DOOM Eternal won’t have SnapMap, which is the map editor that was used in their previous title, DOOM. Instead, it’ll have single-player DLC.
In a Q/A interview, director Marty Stratton explained their reasoning for getting rid of the previous feature. He says:
“Right now we don’t plan on bringing SnapMap back into Doom Eternal,” he said. “We’re really focusing those resources on doing some of the things that players wanted more from us post-launch.”
DOOM’s fans were pretty disappointed when the campaign mode didn’t get any DLC post-release. The SnapMap mode was basically a successor to mods made by the community. SnapMap was an editor that allowed modders to customize maps in fairly advanced ways.
It could do a lot more than typical editors but wasn’t a full-blown code-required map editor. WIth the omission of this feature, id is not working on improving their tech to offer mod support again.
“One of the big criticisms – and even if I could go back and do it again – I think we’d do campaign DLC after launch. People really wanted that. They wanted stuff created by us. SnapMap was really cool. I loved it. But it didn’t really scratch that itch for people. But we know we can.”
Stratton was clear about DOOM Eternal mods and how they’re not guaranteed to be in the game.
“We had made some technical decisions way back that just pushed us in a different direction than mods. We have spent the last several years making technical decisions that get us back towards being able to do mods.
He went on to talk about how they’re shifting focus based on the previous title. He also talked about the multiplayer aspect of DOOM Eternal as another example of their plans for expansion after the game is released.
The multiplayer part will be developed with the same team rather than outsourced to another studio like in DOOM– where it was criticized for being sub-par compared to the campaign. The game will also have an invasion mode, where players can play as a baddie and invade other player’s campaigns to take the place of an AI.
He also briefly talks about a new-fangled PvP component, which is something completely new to the series:
“But we’re not really going deep into that. We are working on a PvP component. It is new. It’s not an extension of what we did last time. So it’s new. It is something we’re developing internally, which we didn’t do last time. I think players are gonna really enjoy it.”