Released in July, DOOM: The Dark Ages – Revelations was praised by both critics and players alike. The new campaign expansion sends the Slayer to purgatory, where players face new demons and puzzles as they fight their way out.
And though those who played the expansion enjoyed what they received, getting to that point wasn’t easy. In fact, it was the hardest stretch of development for many in the history of the DOOM franchise.
The Worst Crunch Many Took Part In
Speaking with Kiwi Talkz on Insider Gaming, former ID Software producer Andrew Willis gave insight into how DOOM: The Dark Ages Revelations managed to get developed. He says that the reason it was able to release in the time that it did was due to the amount of crunch that he and others on the team put in.
“It was tight,” Willis said of the amount of time they had to get things completed for the expansion. “There were two months where I was working something like at least 12 hours every day. I know I hit 17 a couple of days. It was brutal, and the majority of the game got made in three or four months.”
Willis said that there were days where he’d wake up at 5 or 6 AM and get to the office before the sun came up. He said that there were a lot of instances where more things continued to be added to the game, leading to more development time requirements.
“There were days where I didn’t see my son the whole day; multiple days of that that I sacrificed to get this out the door at the level of quality,” he said. “And it’s not just me, but everybody on the team was really putting in the hours.
“We had people that worked in Hollywood for 20 years and game development for 10 and said that this was the worst crunch they’d been a part of.”
He added that the number of hours worked depended on the week. There were times, however, when he’d reach at least 80 hours.
As far as the decision to crunch, Willis called it a blurry line. He said that it wasn’t an official company mandate, but because of the work that needed to be done, it felt like that’s what had to be done to finish the job.
“It’s a really blurry line. You get loaded up with 60 hours of work in a week, and what do you do?” he said. “You can make a version of that work that would probably be just barely passable, but is that what you want to put your name on? It’s almost this thing like, at the level of quality that the players expect and that yoiu expect from yourself, it’s kind of like almost pseudo-induced crunch.”
Willis, along with dozens of others, was ultimately let go from ID Software as part of Xbox’s latest round of sweeping layoffs. For the DOOM: The Dark Ages Revelations team, it came a day before the expansions release.
“You spend so much of your energy and hours of your life, and sacrifice a bunch of things, to get something oput the door, and then they lay you off the day before,” he said.
“It’s such a wild feeling.”
You can listen to this full interview with Andrew Willis now with a Premium Plus membership in the Insider Gaming App. Download the App for free on iOS and Android to get limited ads in the cleanest way to read your gaming news.
Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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