Trivia / Doom³

• Cancellation: Only two of the three planned Doom 3 novels were released; the third got canned.
• Creative Differences: In the beginning, at least. John Carmack revealed in a plan update in 2000 that id had wanted to make a new Doom game right after Quake 3 came out, but id co-owners Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud repeatedly put the kibosh on the idea, believing that id had been making the same game over and over again, and instead id was working on an MMO-type game named 'Quest'. Eventually tensions rose and the id staff issued an ultimatum to Adrian and Kevin: "We are working on Doom for the next project unless you fire us." Kevin and Adrian acquiesced, but longtime id artist Paul Steed was fired the next day, which John called 'retaliation' (though Adrian disputes this).
• Disowned Adaptation: John Romero himself sarcastically wrote that he had no involvement with this game when asked to sign the game box.
• Dummied Out:
  • The Cyberdemon is present in the game files of Resurrection of Evil, but does not appear in the actual expansion. While this could just be leftover data from vanilla 3, it's notably vulnerable to regular weapon fire this time around (as opposed to being impervious to everything except the Soul Cube), possibly indicating it was meant to return.
  • A more agile variant of the Imp that moves on all fours is fully coded into the game (and can even be spawned through console commands), but doesn't appear anywhere. This variety is sometimes used in user-made maps, and its rig was re-used for the Vulgar in Resurrection of Evil with slower movement speed.
• Executive Meddling: Aspyr deliberately arranged for the Mac version of Doom 3 to be incompatible with the files for the Windows version's Resurrection of Evil expansion pack. This is because they had plans for porting the expansion pack themselves, but this Mac-specific port never saw the light of day. And because Aspyr has since lost the licensing rights, it is unlikely that a patch to support Resurrection of Evil will be available in the near future.
• Feelies: Reprints of the Xbox 360 version of BFG Edition with a Xbox One compatible label includes a fold-out poster of the original Doom cover art.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The board game adaptation is long out of print, succeeded, with the Serial Numbers Filed Off, by Descent: Journeys in the Dark. Interestingly enough, Doom (2016) also received a board game adaptation with similar mechanics.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The Limited Collector's Edition on the Xbox includes the two previous games. It also added a second secret level to the first episode in Ultimate Doom and another secret level in Doom II. It also includes a slideshow of concept art, an episode of G4's Icons on id Software, and interviews with the developers.
• Milestone Celebration: Subverted. Doom 3: BFG Edition was released in celebration of the Doom franchise's 20th Anniversary... a year and two months earlier (Dec. 10, 1993 vs Oct. 16, 2012).
• Multi-Disc Work: Doom 3 comes on three CDs.
• Pop-Star Composer: Chris Vrenna, former member of Nine Inch Nails, created the soundtrack of this game, filling in for his bandmate Trent Reznor (already known at Id as the guy who did the Quake soundtrack), who did some unused tracks for the game. He later did the OSTs for other Id games such as Quake IV and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.
• Tuckerization: Dr. Theresa Chasar, the UAC scientist who falls victim to the first Lost Soul encountered in the game, is named after director Tim Willits' sister (who was also his creative partner in their days as amateur .WAD designers). Given Dr. Chasar's small role and grisly fate, one has to wonder if Willits and Mrs. Chasar were on bad terms at the time.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Trent Reznor was originally asked to do work on the sound design, but game development took too long and the contract id had with him expired by the time of launch, so they couldn't officially use the sound files. Those files were later found by the community and used as mods.
  • Concept art for the game's take on the Arachnotron was drawn up, but it didn't make it into the game.
  • The electronic screen on Resurrection of Evil's Bruiser enemy was originally meant to be part of a Jump Scare, where it would blend in with other computer screens and ambush the player when they got too close. The idea was dropped for being too difficult to script.
  • According to the "Making of Doom 3", Ishii was supposed to shoot himself in the head right after the invasion started instead of turning into a zombie.
  • There was going to be a fellow antagonistic figure in form of General Hayden who would be a puppet of Betruger. He was subsequently dropped because the developers found out that Betruger could use Hayden's own lines without a problem. Dr. Samuel Hayden from Doom (2016) is likely a reference to him.
  • Swann was going to be still holding company's best interests, but for his own gain, and he would be more of a sleazeball. He was changed into an Honest Corporate Executive for his banter with Betruger at the beginning to make more sense.

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