Why did Doom 3 fail? (2025)

I just remember it being too slow and focusing way too much on horror elements. Looked amazing at the time, though, I liked it as one of those "Give your graphic card a spin" kind of games, similar to Alan Wake 2 now.

It was the highest selling doom game until 2016 so no, it didn't fail.

It sold gorillions in 2003 despite being a bad doom game
You needed a good computer to run it, too
Still sold gorillions

It has it's highs, but the lows were real low. The remake of the Doom levels for it was fantastic though. Still better than 2016 and Eternal though.

all that matters is we got the dark mod thanks to it.

Because it fricking sucks.
Nice art though.

I only played it as a kid/teen. I liked it more than dated graphically boomer hooter Dooms, but also not.
I mean, I didn't care for original Doom, but Doom 3 was it's own thing to my mind. But I also realized that I don't like horror games that much either.
Also, I only played the demo version.

>Franchise died for almost over a decade
I'm still curious about the Call of Duty DOOM thing they got going on just to see the kind of trainwreck it'll be.

I was pretty young when Doom 3 released, but I saw some random gameplay of it at the time without knowing what it was and it blew my tiny little mind. I thought it looked amazing, and it scared the shit out of me. Still haven't actually played the game and I almost don't want to because I know it'll crush all the mystique I'd built up around it when I was a kid.

I got happy memories with my Dad playing this on PC. I was too scared to play so i just watched most of the time lol. Miss ya, you old bugger.

>>Game comes out and dissapoints veteran fans and newcomers alike
I love this revisionism morons today try to whip out like you can't easily look up the reception on release. a small portion of veterans were disappointed by it, most people liked it.

Doom 3 aged better than Half Life 2

I thought it was a really cool game. Doom 3 and Prey are both highlights from that era.

The fricking shadows were pitch black and the flashlight did shit all to make it visible. You can slide gamma to the max and it will STILL be too dark.

enemies spawning behind your back were cheap and got old real fast
which is a real shame cause game looked amazing for the time, both in technical and atmosphere

You're just dabbling in the same boring indistinguishable corridors for 12 hours and when you finally get to hell, it's only for like 10 minutes and the credits roll. Such a slog of a game, couldn't force myself to complete Resurrection of Evil afterwards. Horror elements and atmosphere work for the first few hours but that's about it, it fails to realize this and continues to go on despite running out of new things to show half-way through.

It was basically diet coke Half Life. And was pretty much blown out of the water by Half Life 2.

because it sucked

Not a Doom game. But they still called it Doom 3 in hopes of tricking everyone into buying this run of the mill slow paced cinematic horror game.

It didn't fail, it sold a shit ton.
Carmack didn't even want to make a Doom 3 in the first place. A bunch of interns convinced him and he also wanted to use it to satisfy his new 3D engine autism.
Only after Bethesda bought Id, DOOM 2016 got released for a quick cashgrab while the brutal doom meme shit was popular.

I remember people at the time saying the guns felt and sounded unsatisfying.

It was nothing like Doom 1 and 2 and it was way too dark. The graphics didn't even look that good, Riddick looked way better