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IDK. FA?
This news post leaves me in a quandary, readers, because I will need to write a swear word for the sake of full journalistic transparency, but Google’s algorithms tend to frown on sweary articles. On the other hand, Google’s algorithms don’t like it when you spend whole intros handwringing about Google’s algorithms, either, so let’s stop, er, faffing around and speak of Doom. Id Software parent company Zenimax recentlytrademarked“IDKFA”, a string of letters that will be of deep significance to original Doom players, and which may therefore be evidence of an impending announcement.
IDKFA is – cover your ears, Google! - short for I Don’t Know Fuck All. It’s an ancient cheatcode that unlocks all the game’s weapons and grants you megaarmour. It being somewhat of a retro insider term bodes well, I guess, for anybody fearful that their next helping of id Software’s demon-melching series will be some kind of ultra-modernised F2P affair or similar.
Original article resumes: Zenimax’s trademark covers “downloadable computer game software via a global computer network and wireless devices” and “downloadable computer game software for personal computers and home video game consoles”. Seems pretty cut-and-dried, though again in the interests of full journalistic transparency, I should add that it also covers “scientific, nautical, surveying, electric, photographic, cinematographic, optical, weighing, measuring, signalling, checking (supervision), life-saving and teaching apparatus and instruments”. So this could be a new Doom game, or it could be some kind of Doom diving bell. They really areputting Doom on everything these days.
“Doom: Year Zero” was among the games mentioned ina Microsoft presentation from July 2020that leaked online last year as part of Microsoft’s legal tussle with the US Federal Trade Commission over the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Eurogamerhave heardthat a Doom announcement is forthcoming at this year’s Summer Games Fest in June.
In other news, Zenimax parent Microsoftrecently closed Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, a development that probably has every other Microsoft-owned developer of games that aren’t Call Of Duty sweating in their boots. Id seem relatively secure against wider corporate “optimisation” or “repositioning”, given their outsized reputation and the success of the last couple of Doom reboots – Doom Eternal made half a billion dollars in its opening nine months. But this being Microsoft in 2024, who knows?
