Developer of Doom id Software have said that they’re prioritizing how the game runs. For them, 1080p and 60 frames per second are most definitely the goal.
During Quakecon, Gamespot were able to talk to Doom executive producer Marty Stratton. He talked about what the company focus on when developing the game, and their decision to choose a high resolution and frame rate while making it.
‘When you’re developing, you make thousands of decisions that have an impact on performance or visual fidelity,’ he told them. ‘We’ve always been at the forefront of saying we want our games to run as fast as possible at the highest resolution possible.’
‘Along with that goal, the mantra of our technology team is that we want to be the best-looking game out there at 60 FPS and 1080p.’
According to him, they think that the frame rate and res is ‘important to the feel of the game’, because it plays a huge part in the success of combat and movement; when you’ve got a game solidly based on shooting/killing, that’s a good thing to keep in mind. The graphics can come after, as Stratton put it, ‘It’s got to be fast, it’s got to be fluid, and it’s all based on that. It really is a gameplay goal first and foremost.’
‘If you do your best to give them a very consistent experience and a very high-quality experience, which for us is a fast, fluid 60 FPS, I think that’s the most important thing.’
All of which avoids the developers from cutting corners and producing a game that is slow. There is a line somewhere though, when the focus is more on how the game runs than what the actual gameplay contains. Finding that balance can be difficult, but at least you can be assured on what you’re getting from Doom: a high res, good running shooter.
Doom is set to launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC in 2016.