Back in 2020, the Doom Eternal OST was released to a mixed reception. Fans noted that there were major differences between the in house music and composer Mick Gordon’s music. A month after the release of the OST, ID Software announced that Mick Gordon would no longer be contributing to Doom in the future. At the time, ID Software Studio Director Marty Stratton said that the two parties “struggled to connect on some of the more production-related realities of development, while communications around those issues have eroded trust.” Now, after two years, Mick Gordon has issued a statement on Medium accusing Stratton of lying about “the circumstances surrounding the Doom Eternal soundtrack and used disinformation and innuendo to blame me entirely for its failure.” Gordon also accuses ID Software failed to pay him and that Marty Stratton was an abusive presence throughout the production of the score and the OST.

In Mick Gordon’s post, he talks about how Doom Eternal was “a difficult project” to work on due to the amount of music ID wanted per month. According to Gordon, ID wanted two levels worth of music per month, despite most of the game not existing yet. The ongoing development led to numerous rewrites and the need to continually scrap submitted music. Gordon proposed a different schedule but Stratton allegedly criticized Gordon’s ability to produce the music. “He rejected my belief that the current schedule was flawed and suggested my act of trying to do something about it was a sign of incompetence,” Gordon alleges. “Refusing to accept the reality of the situation, he threw the proposal back in my face and proceeded to tear me down for having the audacity to raise the issue in the first place.”

Mick Gordon claims that he wasn’t paid until eight months into the project and then wasn’t paid again for another 11 months. After the game’s release, Gordon found that all of the “rejected tracks, mockups, demos, ideas, and sketches” he gave ended up being used in the game after falling under the impression that they weren’t going to be used. Gordon says that they used 4 hours and 46 minutes of his music, but was only paid for 2 hours 22 minutes, leaving 2 hours 24 minutes upaid.

When it was time to work on the OST, Gordon agreed to produce 12 songs for it. There was a deadline of April 16 but Gordon claims that Bethesda told him that the deadline was flexible, with a bonus if he met the date. Stratton emailed Gordon 13 days before the deadline saying that the April 16 date was now a necessity because of “consumer protection laws in some territories meant anyone who purchased the Collector’s Edition was entitled to a full refund if they didn’t receive the OST by April 20.”

Gordon said that he took this as a threat that he would be legally liable for any loss suffered by ID Software if the OST was late. “The fact that this critical piece of information had been withheld from me until after I’d signed the contract made the whole thing feel like a setup to shift liability caused by selling the OST without a contract in the first place,” he claimed.

Gordon then learned that ID’s lead audio designer was working on the OST for six months without his knowledge. He felt that what he was sent “fell short of expectations. Gordon crunched 18-20 hour days to finish the tracks on time, but Stratton decided to use different songs instead with five hours left on the deadline. “I shot back that their rapidly crunching schedule and imminent deadline meant it was too late for a change in direction and that I’d prefer to use the little time remaining to work on the music rather than entertain his sudden last-minute interest in the OST,” Gordon says.

“He said they would release Chad’s version instead. He told me to hand over my tracks, and Chad would assemble the final OST.”

After hearing the final soundtrack after it was released, Gordon’s heart sank. “Alongside my direct contributions were an additional 47 tracks made by poorly editing together bits and pieces taken from my in-game score,” he says. “They exhibited the same thoughtless disregard for basic music fundamentals that plagued the preliminary edits id Software showed me a week earlier.”

He adds: “I was stunned at the ineptitude and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Track after track was full of real, obvious technical faults, mistakes, and errors resulting from careless editing.”

After coming up with a plan to release a joint statement about the OST and a plan to fix the album, Stratton released the 2500+ open letter that signaled Gordon as the reason behind the botched OST.

“The post attracted thousands of comments and news articles and severely damaged my personal and professional reputation. Worst of all, he did it behind my back whilst leading me on with a bullshit story about working together on a professional solution to the problem. His statement was full of lies, disinformation and innuendo, and when challenged, his company offered me a six-figure sum to shut up about it.”

“When I tried, time and time again, amid a torrent of abuse, harassment and threats, to resolve the matter more amicably, he constantly refused, worried how addressing the Reddit post would damage his own reputation instead.

“But as far as I’m concerned, truth and honesty are more important: Marty’s words damaged my character and attacked my reputation. I have afforded him ample opportunity to address this issue, but his refusal to do so has left me with no option other than to issue this statement. In issuing this statement, I’m exercising my right to defend myself.”