DOOM Eternal composer Mick Gordon posted a long Medium post in which he accused id Software executive producer Marty Stratton of lying about the game’s soundtrack, the latter of which fans didn’t like from the moment the game released.
Mick’s public blog was posted in response to Stratton’s Reddit post, which the longtime composer said “severely impacted” both his “professional and personal reputation.” Marty’s post largely blamed the game’s soundtrack mixing and its poor reception on Gordon, who now says was a “nightmare” to produce, among other allegations.
Gordon said the DOOM Eternal soundtrack was not only a nightmare to work on from start to finish, he produced it over an 11-month period without pay. Later, id Software announced a soundtrack album would be included in the game’s collector’s edition, which Gordon had no prior knowledge of.
Furthermore, Gordon alleges that he didn’t get to hear the final soundtrack mix until the game’s release, and said the resulting sound was due to “careless editing” and that its “obvious technical faults, mistakes, and errors” left him shocked.
“Alongside my direct contributions were an additional 47 tracks made by poorly editing together bits and pieces taken from my in-game score,” Gordon wrote. “They exhibited the same thoughtless disregard for basic music fundamentals that plagued the preliminary edits id Software showed me a week earlier.”
Gordon says he discussed the marred soundtrack release with Stratton over Skype, after which Gordon was purportedly asked to take full responsibility for the DOOM Eternal soundtrack release.
“After he spent some time chastising me for my lack of public support, he charged that the failure of the OST was entirely my fault,” Gordon said. “I shot back that it wasn’t my decision to include 47 poorly edited tracks. I hadn’t even heard their final album before release. He directly accused me of failing to take ownership and insisted I take full public responsibility. I countered there was absolutely no way I would take the fall for something I didn’t do.”
Despite allegedly coming to an agreement, finally, and setting up to post a joint statement with plans to fix the issues with DOOM Eternal’s music, Gordon says Stratton went ahead and posted the above Reddit post, putting most of the blame on Gordon.
“In releasing this statement, I’m exercising my right to defend myself,” Gordon said. “It is a defence, not an unprovoked attack, issued with extreme reluctance only after all other attempts to resolve the matter have failed.”
He added that his statements are not an “excuse for a hate campaign” and that “acts of hate dished out online won’t result in any positive change. It only makes things worse.”
Doom Eternal is available on Windows PC (via Bethesda, and Steam), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Google Stadia. In case you missed it, you can find our review here (we recommend it!)
