Doom 3 composer Chris Vrenna
Development
Production
In June 2000, id Software's game engine designer John Carmack, posted an internal company plan announcing a remake of Doom using next generation technology. This plan revealed controversy had been growing within id Software over remaking Doom. Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack, two of id Software's owners, were always strongly opposed to remaking Doom, believing that id was going back to the same formulas and properties too often. However, after the positive reception to Return to Castle Wolfenstein and the latest improvements in rendering technology, most of the employees agreed that a remake was the right idea and presented the two owners with an ultimatum: allow them to remake Doom or fire them. After the reasonably amicable confrontation (although artist Paul Steed, one of the instigators, was fired in retaliation), the agreement to work on Doom 3 was made. Id Software began development on Doom 3 in late 2000, immediately after finishing Quake III: Team Arena. The game was made by 20 to 22 people. In February 2001, it was unveiled to the public by Steve Jobs (CEO of Apple at the time when it unveiled) in Macworld Conference & Expo/Tokyo 2001 along with the GeForce 3 at Makuhari Messe and was later demonstrated at E3 2002 at LACC, where a fifteen-minute gameplay demo was shown. It won five awards at E3 that year.Early in Doom 3's development, Trent Reznor of the band Nine Inch Nails, a fan of the Doom games, was set to compose the music and sound effects to Doom 3. However, due to "time, money and bad management", none of Trent Reznor's sound effects or music made the final product. Eventually, Nine Inch Nails' former drummer, Chris Vrenna, produced and fellow Tweaker band member Clint Walsh composed the game's soundtrack.
We never really did come to an actual agreement with Trent. The original idea was just for him to do all of the sound design for the game. I don't think Trent anticipated how long and how involved that process was and what is involved in game design versus what he does in the music and production side. It just wasn't a good mix with how much time it was going to take him, the value it was going to provide to the game, and what we could afford to pay. Trent's a popular guy. He's a rock star, and his time is valued in rock star dollars.
Doom 3 was also intended to be more storyline-focused than previous id titles, as was demonstrated by the developers' conscious effort to have more professional voice acting. Late in 2002, two employees at ATI Technologies leaked a development version of Doom 3 onto the Internet. One year later, a new trailer was shown at E3 2003 and soon afterwards id Software's website was updated to showcase Doom 3 as an upcoming project, although it was also announced that Doom 3 would not be ready for the 2003 holiday season. According to John Carmack, the development took longer than expected. The developer Splash Damage assisted in design for the multiplayer elements of the game. Around 3,000 beta testers on site provided feedback via QuakeCon. The game's crunch period was between January and August 2004.
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