This week we received a new update for the Doom Eternal. The update brought a new Halloween-themed Mancubus to the game as part of the Ghouls, Gourds, and Galleons event. It also brought a fix for one persistent bug.
However, there is also one change that the new update brought to the game and it is liked by most of the fans of the game, The new update has reset the main menu music back to “the same as it was when Doom Eternal launched in March 2020.”
in March when the developers released The Ancient Gods Part Two, it brought with it new music for the main menu. However, many fans were wondering as to what happened to the original music, and how they can get it back.
Since the game makers were not eager to answer the questions, it was the Mod makers who eventually took the matter into their own hands, with creations like “Old Main Menu Music” (now set to hidden, with a warning that “if ever the main menu music is changed again, you can count on me to make a new version of this mod”).
However in the release notes of the DLC, Bethesda did not mention anything about bringing back the old music, and Bethesda never even acknowledged that it happened. There is speculation, however, that Bethesda’s “complicated” relationship with composer Mick Gordon is at the root of it.
The issue first became public knowledge in April, about a month after the release of The Ancient Gods Part 2, when Gordon said on social media that he hadn’t mixed most of the official Doom Eternal soundtrack and expressed doubt that he’d work with Bethesda again in the future.
Later on, Doom Eternal executive producer Marty Stratton stated that Gordon was a talented composer however, he also added that he was difficult to work with, “creating an unsustainable pattern of project uncertainty and risk” for the studio.
But the real problems began when the soundtrack was released: Gordon wasn’t happy with some of the content and edits, and also that Mossholder was credited as a co-composer, Stratton said, although he noted that Mossholder is listed as a “contributing artist.”
Stratton later said at the time that “for the immediate future, we are at the point of moving on and won’t be working with Mick on the DLC we currently have in production.”
This is Mick Gordon’s original main menu music:
And this is the Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods Part Two menu tune, composed by Andrew Hulshult and David Levy.