Doom: The Dark Ages was a fun, medieval-tinged fight through Hell, but it struggled to be a significant success compared to its predecessors, Doom and Doom Eternal. It may have reached a larger audience because of Xbox Game Pass, but when it comes to actual sales, Doom: The Dark Ages had a hard time reaching the same bar that the past entries set. That doesn't mean it isn't a solid game, though. Doom: The Dark Ages is an action-packed romp with some great new combat mechanics thrown into the mix, which is why it was worthy of getting a DLC in the form of Revelations. It proved to be a solid expansion, but unfortunately, the team at id Software had a pretty rough time bringing it to life because of a strict timeline.
Crunch culture game development isn't anything new to the industry. Even developers like Naughty Dog, who have tried to change its well-known crunch culture, have recently backpedaled these initiatives in order to meet certain deadlines. Between shareholders and higher-ups having increasingly intense expectations, turnaround times and deadlines are becoming harder to hit, which creates a stressful cycle that causes devs to work far longer than what's healthy. According to a former id Software dev, this is exactly what happened with Doom: The Dark Ages' recent expansion. There are a lot of factors that go into these hard-to-meet timelines, but there is one major issue that isn't talked about as much: players have become conditioned to expect a quick turnaround.
Former id Software producer Andrew Willis recently chatted with Insider Gaming about how awful the crunch was when developing Doom: The Dark Ages' new DLC. The expansion took around three to four months to make, which is a crazy short amount of time. For reference, Doom: The Dark Ages took around four years to complete. It would be different if the Revelations DLC wasn't long, but its main story can get close to the 10-hour mark, depending on how fast one plays. That's not a small DLC, so a four-month deadline is wild.
کۆنسۆڵەکان بە ڕیزبەندی دروست دابنێ.
کۆنسۆڵە هەڵبژێردراوەکان لە نزمترینەوە بۆ بەرزترین ڕێکبخە.
Willis claimed that the process of making Revelations was some of the worst crunch that he and many other industry veterans had ever experienced. He made sure to make it clear that the word "crunch" wasn't used by id Software, but the deadline made it practically impossible not to crunch, so the team was forced to work far longer than usual:
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. There were days where I didn't get to see my son the whole day; multiple days that I sacrificed to get this out the door at the level of quality.
This isn't an article trying to point the finger at players, because there are many different reasons why crunch culture has become so prevalent. It's a complex issue. However, the audience has definitely grown more insatiable over the years. A lot of gamers buy a game, knock the main story out in a weekend, and then move on to whatever game looks the most exciting next. It makes it hard for devs to keep up, and it can create pressure to push out DLC and post-launch content within a game's first year in order to stay relevant.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://gamerant.com/doom-the-dark-ages-revelations-dlc-crunch-culture/
