It's not unusual these days to find a studio re-releasing a classic from the vaults, reworked for the HD era. What is unusual for a studio to dig deep into the guts of such a game and give it a complete overhaul, tightening the gameplay, tweaking the engine and adding even more levels.
That's what iD has done for the upcoming Doom 3 BFG edition, which sees the eye-catching 2004 shooter given a comprehensive makeover.
"We went through every single level of the original and things that were really frustrating or not fun, we made them more enjoyable," iD's Tim Willits explained. "So it is really kind of cool for us - especially as we all love the Doom franchise - to go back and rework the game in such a way."
As well as small changes throughout the game, there will also be an eight level expansion called Lost Mission. This casts you as the sole surviving member of Bravo Team, a marine squad that you spend much of the main game trying to locate. These new levels add another three hours to the game and have been designed by the same team that worked on the original game. According to Willits, "you blast your way into hell and fight a big boss at the end" which sounds perfectly in keeping with the Doom name to us.
"Instead of a slower horror game with action elements, it's now more of a faster action game with horror elements", concludes Willits.