Game publisher Activision announced today that it has secured worldwide distribution rights to Doom III, Id Software’s forthcoming 3D action game. The companies plan to debut the new game at this month’s E3, which happens in a few weeks in Los Angeles, Calif.
Doom III is the latest major title to emerge from Id Software, whose previous titles include Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Quake III Arena and, of course, the Doom series. Activision has long been Id Software’s publishing partner, so today’s news is no great surprise to the gaming press or analysts.
It was more than a year ago that Id Software founder John Carmack stood on the keynote stage of Macworld Expo in Tokyo and showed the world new graphics technology developed to serve as the underpinnings of Doom III.
Carmack was in Tokyo in 2001 to demonstrate the advanced new features available on Nvidia’s then-new GeForce3 graphics hardware, which also made its public debut on the Macworld Expo stage. Since then, Carmack has alternately championed and criticized new graphics hardware from both Nvidia and ATI in various comments posted on online forums and to his own .plan file.
Carmack and Id’s Graeme Devine have long supported Apple’s efforts with Mac OS X. After Quake III Arena was published, Carmack said that Id would support OS X exclusively for future Mac releases, and it’s only because of the decision of Mac game publisher Aspyr Media that Return to Castle Wolfenstein was ultimately made available for OS 9 as well. Id’s support for OS X is expected to continue with Doom III, although the identity of the Mac publisher may still be an open question.
While Activision’s statement only mentions in passing that Doom III is a PC game and doesn’t specify system requirements, it’s possible that the PC and console-centric Activision may license a Mac publisher to port the Mac version of Doom III itself. Activision did exactly that with Return to Castle Wolfenstein, published for the Mac only a couple of weeks ago by Aspyr Media.