some found the clumsy control method of having to switch between flashlight and shooter as a fatal flaw in doom 3's suspension of disbelief. others struggled with the stuttering pace of the early levels and the claustrophobic atmosphere. other still saw the game as little more than a routine fps tarted up with shiny graphics, struggling under the weight of a massive chip on its shoulder - half-life 2 was on the horizon.

as tends to happen in the world of videogames, these criticisms rapidly gathered momentum and threatened to tarnish the truth: that doom 3 was one of the most accomplished, atmospheric, professional and pant-dampeningly terrifying experiences in the history of gaming, let alone first-person shooters. oh, and it happened to sell like hell, too.

and yet, it still seems to split gamers down the middle in a way few titles manage. perhaps that's one of the reasons id started work on resurrection of evil, doom 3's expansion pack, even before the full game had even sniffed a shop shelf.

resurrection of evil is being developed just down the street from id's texas base at nerve software, the guys responsible for the multiplayer aspect of return to castle wolfenstein and the xbox port of the game. id are keeping in close contact with nerve to ensure the expansion remains true to the doom series and ethos.

the result should be an expansion that addresses criticisms, rewards fans, and bottles the essence of doom 3 evil into a formula that will unite those players who were previously so split by the game. from our discussion with tim willits, co-owner and creative director at id software, it looks like they might just manage to do it.

and a word of warning before we start: the plotline of resurrection of evil follows directly from the end of doom 3, so if you haven't completed d3 a bunch of spoilers will bite your backside like a hungry imp. be brave.

can you tell us a little bit about how the resurrection of evil expansion pack begins?

tim willits: basically the mission pack kicks off two years after doom 3. i don't want to spoil it for anyone, but at the end of doom 3 you use the soulcube to close the portal between hell and mars, then you're airlifted from the planet along with any plans to continue research on the planet. the uac covers it all up as an industrial accident.

but then years later they pick up a strange signal emitting from the planet. turns out it's coming from one of the sites that were being studied by the uac so they dispatch a squad of combat engineers - including you, you no longer play the marine - to investigate under the command of elizabeth mcneil. she was the person who initially alerted swan to the fact that dr. betruger was up to no good in the first game, but she escaped off the planet before it all kicked off.

so what reopens the bridge between hell and mars?

tim willits: the uac discovers that there's an ancient artefact at this site which is a weapon of evil used in the original war - it's hell's equivalent of the soulcube. you lead a small team into the ruins to find it, but when you take possession of it you re-open the portal to hell - and hell wants the artefact back.

dr. betruger, who escaped into hell at the end of doom 3, is the guy who wants it back most of all, so he sends three demon hunters after you to get it. each one has a special power and when you defeat them you acquire that power. we wanted to focus more on unique gameplay experiences because we'd already taken care of the technology. for instance, when you destroy the first boss you acquire hell time, which slows the whole world down but lets you move at regular speed. that kind of gameplay mechanism was designed to be used along with the ancient artefact.

will you be able to use more than one demon power at a time?

tim willits: sure, they basically stack on top of each other. you'll eventually acquire hell time, berserk and invulnerability, and you'll really have to use them together because you're going to be fighting your way through a real barrage of demons. but using the powers wisely is also important - when i'm playing and i hear some of our new enemies approaching, i always hop into hell time so i can get the drop on them. some of the new enemies are so fast you'll really need to use hell time to dance around them.

so there will be any new enemies spilling forth from hell?

tim willits: we've put in a lot of new demons, but we don't want to talk about too many of them at the moment. my favourites are a huge new creature called the bruiser who's packing two chainguns for arms and is even bigger than a hellknight, and a smaller imp-like creature called the vulgar who's quick and deadly.

with all the new demons you must have some new weapons in there too...

tim willits: yeah, we've got new weapons in the expansion pack. you're a combat engineer, so that gave us a good reason to give you a ionized plasma levitator, which is basically a physics manipulator you can use to pick up objects and move them around. the coolest thing about it is that you can actually pick up monsters or fireballs, and then use them to attack other monsters. we've also brought back the double-barrelled shotgun as a treat for fans.

the gravity gun is something that half-life 2 has really made fashionable in first-person shooters. did you want to include a weapon of this kind in doom 3 or was it inspired by hl2?

tim willits: not at all. in fact, you could access our gravity gun in doom 3 by pulling down the console and entering a code which would then let you manipulate the physics with the cursor keys, but it wasn't something we wanted to focus on until now. and we're using it in more of a combat sense. for instance, you'll have to use it against the very first hunter you come up against to send his fireballs back at him.

the first section of doom 3 was quite slow and deliberate in the way it built up the tension. will the pacing in resurrection of evil be equally creepy, or are you going for a more action-oriented experience?

tim willits: it's shorter, it's about half as long as doom 3. i think it's a lot more intense. there's more of a focus on action and when you add in the powers you acquire from the hunters and the extra possibilities of the gravity gun, we're definitely talking about a much more action-packed experience. that's not to say there won't be quieter, more moody moments too, but we really wanted to try and make it as much fun as we possibly could.

is there a constant sense of being pursued by the demon hunters?

tim willits: we've tried to engineer the combat in such a way that you never really feel very safe.

the early environments in doom 3 were very enclosed and claustrophobic. how do they differ in resurrection of evil?

tim willits: towards the end of doom 3 you discovered the remains of an ancient civilization. the locations were very unique, cavernous locations with an egyptian-style aesthetic. the player learned about how the civilisation lived on mars and their technology, like teleportation. a lot of fans really liked that environment and the experience of learning about the civilisation, so we really wanted to start the expansion pack in that area. so resurrection of evil starts off in an area the uac called site 1, which is a collection of the civilisation's ruins.

it's obvious that you guys are keen to keep an eye on fan feedback and react to it. how important do you think that is and how much has it influenced resurrection of evil?

tim willits: our fans are very important to us. i believe we have a good relationship with them and we love listening to what they have to say. if what they want ties in with our plans then we have absolutely no problem taking suggestions. we're more tuned into the community than people realise. we might not reply verbally to every last thing, but we do keep our ears to the ground. we play other games, we listen really hard, and we try to make the best products ourselves.

because we started working on the mission pack before we finished the game we were able to put some hooks into doom 3 that tie into the story of the expansion pack, and since we worked on the mission pack after the game was released we were able to look at the feedback and try to incorporate that into the expansion pack. it lets us play around a little with things from the series' past: that's why we brought back the double-barrelled shotgun. people love that kind of thing.

not all of the feedback from doom 3 was positive though, right?

tim willits: for every piece of negative feedback we got we received many, many positive comments. the things that people really liked we wanted to give them more of. that's why you'll see a lot of the more cavernous environments and the re-introduction of the double-barrelled shotgun, and also the reason for the enviro-suit. this comes with a head mounted light so you can use all your weapons at the same time as your flashlight. we've had a great opportunity to listen to what people wanted and react to that.

doom 3's flashlight was one of the features that people really got upset about, but you guys staunchly defended. do you see the enviro-suit as a concession to those criticisms?

tim willits: no. we felt that within the areas you use the enviro-suit it would be more fun to have a constant light and be able to use all your weapons unhindered. the zombies that once worked down in these environments are also wearing the enviro-suits with the same lights, so it looks really cool and atmospheric too.

you mentioned that dr. betruger shows up again. what can you tell us about him?

tim willits: betruger's the final boss in resurrection of evil, and you'll battle him in hell. i'd love to tell you more but we like to keep boss encounters secret so as not to spoil it for our fans.

are you planning any surprises for players who completed doom 3? for instance, since you're not playing the marine, is there any chance of him showing up in a cameo?

tim willits: the marine's definitely not in the mission pack. we wanted to focus on making the expansion as much fun as possible and part of that was changing the way you experienced the game.

we've heard the multiplayer side, another aspect of the original that drew some criticism, has been beefed up, too...

tim willits: yeah. first of all, you can now play multiplayer with eight players. you'll be able to find mods that let you play with more, but eight players is the limit that we've officially tested and balanced. on top of that we've added eight new multiplayer maps, four of which are designed for deathmatch and take place in the environments you'll see in the expansion pack. then we have another four maps designed for capture the flag by threewave, the mod team who created the very first capture the flag game all the way back in the quake 1 days. we think people are going to love playing ctf.

will you be able to use any of the demon powers in the multiplayer mode?

tim willits: no, they're going to be strictly for the single-player game.

what's next for the doom universe?

tim willits: well, there's the xbox version which should be out soon. then of course there's quake 4. when we have more information on that very soon, but it's going to be a very different experience to doom 3 - there's tanks and walkers and all kinds of guys running around in this huge war. but as far as the doom franchise goes you'll have to wait for the movie to come out, and then we'll see where we go from there.

to what extent have you guys been involved with the movie?

tim willits: we like to make games, and they like to make movies. we don't imagine ourselves as movie experts, but we've been able to give them a little bit of direction and advice. we've been really happy with what universal and the actors have down with the subject matter. we've been going over to the set in prague to check it out and it's been a great experience for us.

there's been an awful lot of negative noise on the fansites about the movie and the perceived attitude of the scriptwriter. how did you react to that?

tim willits: there's always noise on the newsgroups about this kind of stuff. i think it's best for everyone just to relax, wait for the movie to come out and go and enjoy it. that's what we're going to do.

does it worry you that most movies adapted from videogames are usually pretty poor?

tim willits: no, because we have a top-notch production staff. we've got john wells who worked on er, lorenzo di bonaventura who took the matrix to warner brothers, we have dwayne johnson - the rock - starring in it with karl urban from lord of the rings: the two towers and the bourne supremacy. and then everyone working on the movie is really excited about the project. from the guys making the monsters, to the guys working on the cg, to the guys working on the lighting rigs, everyone's excited to work on the title. there's a really good vibe there, and that has us excited.

finally, when's can we expect resurrection of evil to hit shelves?

tim willits: i have a pre-order box in my hand here, but until we have a date we tend not to speak about it. so i'll have to answer with... when it's done.

doom 3: resurrection of evil is expected to hit shelves sometime "when it's done". more solid release date news as soon as we get it

graeme boyd