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Bethesda Has Stupidly Ruined That Epic Metal Doom Eternal Soundtrack

Last Updated September 23, 2020 1:50 PM
William Worrall
Last Updated September 23, 2020 1:50 PM
  • Doom Eternal’s soundtrack has reportedly been mixed by Bethesda, in such a way that a lot of the tracks lose their dynamic range.
  • According to Mick Gordon, the game’s composer, on Twitter, it’s easy to tell which tracks he did mix by their dynamic waveform.
  • Bethesda seems entirely set on ruining everything they touch these days.

Part of the legacy supported by games like Doom Eternal is the music. One of the most interesting elements of the original game was the soundtrack. Booting that first level with those signature guitar riffs you could tell you were in for something special .

That same feeling carries over to the soft reboot of Doom 2016. You can literally hear the digitized chainsaw sounds that Mick Gordon used in the music. It’s a suitably driving metal soundtrack. However, in their ongoing quest to ruin everything, Bethesda has managed to butcher that music.  

Doom Eternal - Music Tweets
Gordon defended his work, saying that the tracks he had mixed all had the dynamic range of volumes and intensity that the first track example had. | Source: Twitter  (Edited by CCN.com)

Doom Eternal and Mick Gordon Deserved Better

Mick Gordon is a musical genius. The way he mixes industrial sounds into his music is legendary. Without him, Doom Eternal probably wouldn’t exist, at least not in the way it does now. Doom 2016 was a great game, but the music helped make it great.

Everything came out on Twitter when someone noticed something odd about the music in Doom Eternal . The waveform for the 2nd game was all completely flat. Basically, this means the music has no dynamic range at all, and all of the instruments are the same volume level.

Effictively Bethesda has just completely butchered the music in Doom Eternal. Now, rather than sounds mixing together to create new and interesting music, they all strive for dominance in a way Mick Gordon would never have intended.

Bethesda Has Made It Even Worse

That’s not even the worst part. Doom Eternal may be the last game in the series to benefit from Mick Gordon’s stellar work. As well as butchering his work, Bethesda appears to have burned their relationship with him.

A thread on ResetEra documents text and comments from Gordon . In these comments, he talks about how he is unlikely to work on any future Doom titles. More than that, he gives us clues that the marketing department might be responsible for at least some of the terrible butchering of Doom Eternal’s tracks.

Honestly, if Mick Gordon doesn’t want to continue to work with a company that has violently mangled his work, it’s hard to blame him. Bethesda allowing a marketing department anywhere near creative elements of a game is a sign that their decline into money-hungry mediocrity it much further along than we thought.


Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.