New id Software VR Game Listed By Australian Classification Board

A new listing from the Australian Classification board may have leaked a new id Software VR game.

The listing (pointed out to us by Twitter user GamerToTheEnd) for a project codenamed ‘Project 2021A’, was awarded an R 18+ classification for ‘high impact violence’ and ‘online interactivity’ on January 22nd, and has a ‘Year of Production’ listing for 2021. The listing confirms Bethesda Softworks as the publisher and id Software as the author, and the filing was made by the Australian branch parent company Zenimax (which itself is now owned by Microsoft).

New id Software VR Game Spotted

This wouldn’t be id Software’s first VR game. In 2017 the studio released Doom VFR which tied into the 2016 series reboot, reusing some of its assets and levels along with all-new content. 2020 saw the studio release the next full sequel, Doom Eternal, so it’s possible this project could again remix content from that campaign.

Then again, the mention of ‘online interactivity’ might suggest the game has a multiplayer component. Doom Eternal had no multiplayer to speak of, but perhaps this could link to Quake, Doom’s sister series also developed by id. 2018’s Quake Champions was online-only, after all.

Of course, it could be entirely unrelated to either franchise and either be a new original project or tied to the Rage series. Either way, it’s encouraging to see Bethesda releasing new VR content – despite early support with Doom VFR, Fallout 4 VR and Skyrim VR — all of which sold ‘really well‘ — it’s been a while since the publisher’s last VR releases, which included the underwhelming Wolfenstein: Cyberpilot and optional VR modes for Prey. Curiously, though, this new title couldn’t release on Microsoft’s new Xbox consoles in their current form, as they don’t support VR headsets. Hopefully, that may one day change.

We also have to wonder if this game might release on Facebook’s VR platforms. Zenimax famously took the social networking giant to court over a dispute about the involvement of id’s John Carmack, who went from the company to a CTO role at Oculus. Bethesda even claimed it made the first VR headset, the prototypes for the Oculus Rift, during one E3 presentation. Could the Microsoft acquisition help patch things up between the two?

Need more VR Doom? A new mod recently brought Doom 3 to Oculus Quest, and it’s really rather great.