Doom 4 is now Doom, also is a reboot

[Dark Jaguar]

Following the rather annoying trend of naming new games in a series in confusing ways, we have the upcoming Doom, which is Doom 4, but it isn't, because it's Doom now. But, it's not Doom, it's a reboot, called Doom.

Isn't Doom 3 also a reboot? They called that Doom 3, even though it was a reboot, right?

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, Doom 3 was indeed a reboot. But just using the name without a new number on it is the modern style, so this makes sense. It's Doom (Year) instead of Doom 4, I guess. I'd rather see a number, but oh well, it's not too big of a deal, so long as the game is good... I'm really wondering about that, considering that John Carmack left. Doom 3 and Rage are both pretty good games, but will id be as good without him?

[Dark Jaguar]

Don't misunderstand, calling Doom 3 Doom 3 was probably a mistake considering it was a reboot. However, they really should go with a subtitle in these cases. They've done this sort of "same name as the first game" thing a few times, it isn't all that new (Sonic 2006 was... in 2006, about a decade ago), but it's always frustrating.

[Great Rumbler]

The footage they showed behind closed doors at Quakecon last year was pretty amazing, far better than I ever thought they'd manage to do with how troubled development has been.

[A Black Falcon]

The footage they showed behind closed doors at Quakecon last year was pretty amazing, far better than I ever thought they'd manage to do with how troubled development has been.

Did you see that footage? I haven't...

Don't misunderstand, calling Doom 3 Doom 3 was probably a mistake considering it was a reboot. However, they really should go with a subtitle in these cases. They've done this sort of "same name as the first game" thing a few times, it isn't all that new (Sonic 2006 was... in 2006, about a decade ago), but it's always frustrating.

The solution of using Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) works well; I think I used to find this more annoying than I do now, though I've probably just gotten used to it. As you say, yeah, it has been a while. Also though, putting the year in parenthesis after the name, as is also often also done with movies I think, is a good solution that helps, I think. At least it lets you tell the games apart easily, which is good. A subtitle or slight name change is better, but at least that's something.

[Sacred Jellybean]

Hmm... iterate a series by either a subtitle or year. Tough call. A year is rather clinical, but informative. You can tell when a game came out and where it was technologically, and have a better frame of reference. A subtitle is more interesting and can give a feel of the games theme or story. On the other hand, for sonic or doom that sort of thing is immaterial.

[Dark Jaguar]

The problem is, it makes online searches a lot more difficult than they should be when they make the titles identical like this.

[Great Rumbler]

Did you see that footage? I haven't...

Yes, I was there to see it.

[A Black Falcon]

Ah, that's cool.

So, on a related note to the subject of this thread, EA just announced a new Need for Speed game. It's a series reboot titled... Need for Speed. Yup. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-0...s-a-reboot

[Dark Jaguar]

Yet another set of google searches ruined...

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, technically there has not been an NFS game named simply "Need for Speed" before (the first game was named "Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed"), but that won't make finding this one online any easier, unless you also search for the platform, etc. This kind of "similar to the original games' name but with a slight wording change" thing isn't uncommon -- think of Wolfenstein (2009) for another example -- but when you use part of the original name as your name with nothing new added, it definitely makes finding your game in searches more difficult.

[Great Rumbler]

Since most search engines lean towards presenting newer content over older content, I really don't think finding information about those games will be all that difficult. Unless you are 100 years old and don't understand how a computer works.