or is this something like CD but strictly for doom ?

Zenimax bought id, the developers of DOOM.

Bethesda Zenimax bought id Software, the developers of the Doom series. They're the same guys making Rage.

Ninja'd by FalloutFTW. >.<

Actually, Zenimax bought Id, not Bethesda. So Id and Bethesda are both owned by Zenimax.

Zenimax is the parent company for Bethesda Softworks and id Software. Bethesda Softworks publishes titles by Bethesda Game Games Studios, new titles by id Software (like DOOM II XBLA and RAGE), as well as certain titles from 3rd party developers -- for instance we're publishing Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian), Brink (Splash Damage), and Hunted: The Demon's Forge (inXile Entertainment)

Ah, I remember Doom 1. Legend of a game. I now have it on my xbox. Hopefully Zenimax will only do good for Doom. ^_^

EDIT: My Avatar svcks in this forum

Im not quite sure if this is a good thing or not....

I guess time will tell.

A Doom RPG in the pipeline maybe?

There already is one, its out for cell phones.

you guys aren't publishing the next elder scrolls?

Can't publish something that doesn't exist yet

I think he was trying to trick him into confirming it.

Do you have something in your eye?

I have something on my tongue

I believe when id joined Zenimax they mentioned that many other publishers are already working with major FPS series, so id's games could potentially be in competition with other big FPS titles their publishers were working on. By joining Zenimax they could avoid this since they aren't really involved with the genre.

Bethesda Softworks close relationship with Splash Damage, the developers of Brink, is an exception I suppose but then id also has a close relationship with Splash Damage so it hardly seems problematic.


From everything said at the time it seemed like id would be getting additional financial security and a good publisher relationship without any real loss in developer independence.

I think of Zenimax as the all knowing god-like company. Very ominous. Owns a bunch of (what I thought) independent companies. But why did gamesas buy id when Zeni owns them?

Since id is in the picture now, is bethesda going to use the id tech engines instead of the gamebryo engine, and get advice from John Carmack when making future bethesda games?

Out of seriousness, the gamebryo engine is crap. Well the player animations are crap, and that they match the player animations from the quake 1 engine. And that engine was like 15ish years ago.

We'll just see how well id tech 5 handles open worlds first.

Bethesda didn't buy id, although Bethesda will be publishing id's upcoming games.


Bethesda hasn't said, and we don't know what their next game will be so it's hard to speculate. However I would say it's extremely unlikely that Bethesda's next game will use id tech 5:

By the time id joined Zenimax Bethesda had almost certainly started work on their next game. If Bethesda had already started working on a new engine for their next game developement would have been well under way by the time id joined - it is possible that Bethesda had already decided they wanted to use id tech 5 but if so this decision was made without the benefit of their future relationship. I'd also say that given Bethesda's experience working with gamebryo it seems more likely that they would have stuck with them.

Alternatively Bethesda may not have started working on a new engine and may have decided to do one more game with the Oblivion/Fallout 3 engine. In this case their next game still won't use id tech 5 obviously but after that they will be in the market for a new engine and id tech 5 will probably look like a good option. It is possible that Bethesda will stick with gamebryo given their familiarity with the engine and its focus on mutability . . . . but the financial benefits of 'purchasing' an engine from your sister company (and the extra exposure they'll get from this) sounds like a strong arguement for id tech 5. The real hurdle, I imagine, will be whether id tech 5 can be modified to fit Bethesda's requirements.

This has already been explained; Zenimax owns Bethesda. Now, Zenimax also owns id Software.

Simple, isn't it?

Not only that, but Bethesda/Zenimax has had very good relations with the Gamebyro developers, so they're more than likely always going to stick with that engine.

And does it really matter of saying Zenimax bought it instead of Bethesda? I know technically Zenimax did, but Zenimax was basically a shell company created from Bethesda Softworks. I bet they're working on some sort of T-Virus too. =P

In addition to the learning curve for id tech with a game presently under development, they'd also have to bone up on OpenGL.

Thanks for making this sticky, I was coming to ask exactly the same thing. I came to these forums after years of absence and wondered why the hell there was a DOOM forum here. Also glad to know that id is in good hands.

It's not pinned, it's just at the top of the forum

Will the next game on the gamebryo engine have perfect player animations? That is, the laws of physics apply to the walking player? That is, if I move in a circular motion while looking in one direction, my feet won't slide all over the ground, thus making me look like the player from Quake 1 or Hexen II?

No offense, but the animations in oblivion svcked, and I thought that in fallout 3, it would have been fixed, but it wasn't, so I would have put blame on the engine itself.

I also suggested id tech engines, because the player animations, well at least the strafing left and right has decent animations in id tech 2, but in oblivion or fallout 3, when you are strafing, the animations state that the player is trying to move forward, not sideways, and that is important if there is to be a third person camera angle.

I believe unreal and source has decent strafing animations too. If it isn't the engine, then it is probably the animators.

I thought Oblivion's engine was rather perfect for what it was designed to do. My only problem with Oblivion was how they tried to make it easier for the novice (thus making it a bit dull for the veteran). With that being said, Oblivion was still an amazing game, and with the right mods it is still playable today. I have it installed with an extremely hacked up WINE because of the great mods and TES-esque gameplay that many try to copy.

Id games are more linear, but they have historically provided native Linux installers. This makes me an Id devote~. I was disappointed that Wolfenstein did not have a Linux installer (like Doom Doom 2, Doom3, Doom3 RoE, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 3, Quake 4, Return to Castle Wolfenstien, Wolfenstein 3d, Enemy Territory, Prey, and Enemy Territory : Quake Wars had), but considering their track record of supporting the OS I prefer, I'm hopeful for the future.

you wouldn't want to play wolfenstein anyway. The single player is meh, but it isn't as good as the others.

From my understanding Bethesda has two priorities when it comes to engine selection. The first is that it can support a large sandbox world with a sufficiently high level of interactive 'stuff.' The second is that the engine be highly mod-able, that is it's possible for Bethesda to modify the engine to fit their needs. The latter is one of Gamebryo's strengths, it's primarily a engine and it is expected that the developer will heavily augment and modify it to fit their needs.

Graphics also seem to be a priority, ever since Daggerfall they've wanted to push the envelope in this regard. TES IV wasn't Crysis (which was released twenty months later) but it still had a very advanced graphics engine particularly given the amount of items it could display and that the view distance was pulled so far back.

Familiarity is also a perk if not a priority. Bethesda has developed two engines with Gamebryo for three separate titles - switching over to a different engine would probably slow down developement as the programmers, designers, and artists learn to work with the new engine.

Manageable hardware requirements are also an important factor, if the game can only be run by the top 1% of computers it doesn't matter how awesome it will be the game will flop.

Physics based animations look great but given how many NPCs and critters may be displayed at one time in an Elder Scrolls game it may be an unrealistic expectation. I suppose that depends on what the target hardware is for their next game, if they want it to work on current generation consoles it's probably not an option - if their target is next generation consoles and beefier PCs maybe we will see it.