Bethesda suspends Doom 4 - rumour

UPDATE: Bethesda has poured cold water on the rumour that it has "indefinitely postponed" Doom 4.

Responding to a Tweet by Eurogamer Operations Director Tom Bramwell wondering about the rumour, Bethesda's VP of PR and Marketing Pete Hines said bluntly: "complete bollocks".

"Re: Doom 4 rumour, games are done when they are done and no title under development at id has been postponed - indefinitely or otherwise."

ORIGINAL STORY: Doom 4 development has been "indefinitely" postponed, a new rumour claims.

Studio owner Bethesda apparently has "a serious lack of confidence in the project management at id [Software]", following the "issues and reviews" surrounding the launch of Rage.

The decision was made at a company-wide Zenimax/Bethesda meeting in Dallas, Texas, a source told Kotaku.

Bethesda told Eurogamer this morning it doesn't comment on rumour or speculation.

The Rage team was to move onto Doom 4 "as soon as Rage ships", id Software icon John Carmack revealed this summer. After that, work would begin on Rage 2.

Will Rage 2 now skip the development queue? Or does Bethesda plan to wade in, restructure, and then continue with Doom 4?

That's if this turns out to be true.

Rage was to be the long-awaited, triumphant return of Quake and Doom maker id Software to the video game scene. But Rage turned out to be good rather than great, and id Software's comeback was marred by technical hiccups on flagship platform PC.

"It's not going to change the world," wrote Tom Bramwell in Eurogamer's Rage review, "but it does serve as a timely reminder of that other thing id Software games always did besides smashing through some new technological barrier. They made shooting things fun, and it's nice to have that back."