Doom 2016 Composer Mick Gordon Says He'd Return to the Doom Series "In a Heartbeat"

Mick Gordon, the legendary Aussie composer who brought a headbang to every headshot in 2016’s Doom and its 2020 follow-up Doom Eternal, has told IGN that he’s open to the idea of contributing to future instalments in id Software’s iconic shooter series. During an interview conducted at this weekend’s PAX Australia, Gordon seemed to indicate that his involvement with Doom isn’t necessarily done for good, despite the very public falling-out that occurred between the composer and Doom Eternal’s development team in the wake of its release.

“There are a lot of dominoes that would have to fall in a very specific way for that to occur,” said Gordon. “If those dominoes ever fell in that way, I would. Of course. Within a heartbeat.”

Gordon didn’t elaborate on exactly what those “dominoes” might be, but it’s possible that disputes between the composer and Doom Eternal’s executive producer Marty Stratton have yet to be fully resolved. In a lengthy 2022 post on Medium, Gordon accused developer id Software of failing to pay him for half of his work on the Doom Eternal soundtrack, and singled out Stratton as being a recurringly abusive presence throughout his work on the score and the OST. However, it certainly seems as though the experience hasn’t dimmed Gordon’s love for Doom itself.

“I had a whole list of ideas where I wanted to go with Doom,” explained Gordon. “And I’d love to explore that one day, for sure.”

What the future of Doom looks like with or without Gordon’s involvement is another story. id Software was one of the many studios heavily impacted by Microsoft’s ongoing cuts to its Xbox business, with 136 members of staff at the Doom developer affected by layoffs in July. At the time, lead services programmer Chris Hays was quoted as saying, “It’s hard to make a game that is AAA, that’s like we’ve done before, with half the people. And by hard, I mean impossible.”

In the meantime, Gordon has been keeping busy with a variety of projects. He’s contributed the theme music for the final boss fight in Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2, which will be released on October 14. He’s also still actively at work producing the full soundtrack for Defect, the squad-based cyberpunk shooter developed by veterans of Doom and the Call of Duty series. In 2027, he’s set to return to Doom at least in a performance sense, as the headliner at the UK’s RADAR music festival where he’ll be performing the music he composed for Doom and Doom Eternal with a full live band for the first time.