Bethesda have confirmed that Doom will not support modding. Instead, player-made content for the game will be created exclusively in the SnapMap tool that ships with the game.
Talking to GameTrailers, Bethesda’s Pete Hines said: “Everything that we’re doing on the mod side will be through SnapMap.”
While such news is no doubt disappointing for many players and perspective modders, it does look like SnapMap will be more than just a basic level creator. Developer id Software hasn’t explained how the whole system works, but Hines compares it to Minecraft. “I used the analogy the other day [of] Minecraft. If you just pull any 12 year old and sit them in front of Minecraft, if they don’t know what they’re doing they could still make something: they can make a smiley face or build themselves a house. But if you put it in the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing, they can recreate Zelda in Minecraft.”
“The SnapMap tools are much the same. Give it to anybody and they can do simple stuff, but the complex stuff – all those things that used to be super-complicated – the idea is that there’s enough complexity and depth there that you can do all this scripting stuff, and make new gameplay modes. It’s got this really steep high end, but you don’t have to jump right to it like you do with the [previous] Doom tools.”
Unfortunately SnapMap is restricted to creating indoor environments only. And for as far as those interior spaces go, it sounds like you’ll be limited on space, too. “It’s more about the stuff you saw in multiplayer – it’s tighter. You’re not worried about building an interior space that’s 30 stories high and half a mile across,” explained Hines.
Not being able to create vast spaces is disappointing, especially for anyone who was hoping to create an epic co-op game as suggested by id Software themselves.
Doom releases in 2016.
Thanks, PC Gamer.