Doom: 30 years as the eternal king of shooters

Without the latest installments of DOOM 2016 and DOOM Eternal, which revived and expanded the story of our beloved Doom Guy in spectacular ways, perhaps we wouldn’t have him in mind as much, since we didn’t have him practically not seen. since 2004, the year of the launch of its third opus, which despite several expansions, was only reproduced in the episode in which Hugo Martin and Marty Stratton managed to modernize it in an impressive way, without losing the pleasure that the original provided , but without losing in view of the new era in which shooting games have been launched.

And that’s it Doom has always been about innovation, because its influences on the video game industry since 1993 have been almost endless. In this mini-article, made by a fan, we will review the most interesting and curious details of the franchise during its 30 years of life.

An authentic “influencer”

For the first Doom, what we’ve seen many times before happened. Multi-million dollar success stories that started taking shape in a simple garage. Something similar happened with the work of John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud. A totally different way of imagining video games, a radical change from the usual 2D, which at the programming level was a mastery, but without the whole team they would not have been able to create a title that for he era was immersive like few others. Coming to occupy several covers for its extreme violence, its protests for its apologias of Satanism and much more. Along with Mortal Kombat or Carmageddon, this was one of the reasons for the creation of what we know today under the code name PEGI.

The success of this opus and the total consolidation with Doom 2: Hell on Earth was such that the entire id Software team found itself on the dollar overnight. So much so that Carmack literally started collecting Ferraris. (one even gave it away during a Quake championship). Despite numerous clones, none have been able to match the original. And of course, even if it is not the first “First Person Shooter” in history, an honor for Wolfenstein 3D, it is the most influential and the one that made the genre suddenly one of the most prolific and best known to fans. .

A mythical and inimitable character

He was just a pissed off Marine. He was kicked out of his regular mission and transferred to Mars for punching a superior. The soldier known as Doom Guy was the only one capable of dealing with a full demonic invasion, first on the Red Planet and then on Earth. After these events, the UAC bombarded all invaded facilities with extreme radiation, to exterminate any remaining beings there, but four years later they detected movement in one of them.

Being the most experienced in combat, Doom Guy was cast in “Search and Destroy”. There, an ancient being called the Demon Mother managed to resurrect an entire army, but once again, the marines managed to completely defeat them. However, his mind was so corrupted and broken that he realized his only reason for existing was to eradicate all demons. So he went to hell to make sure that there would be no more invasions from there.

These last events, taken from Doom 64, were the last we had of the character. In Doom 3, a different UAC Marine than the one we knew had a different adventure, and the legend returned in 2016 with the new DOOM. Because we were no longer just any sailors. Our adventure began locked in a sarcophagus. The demons were so afraid of us that they had to lock us away for millennia. They themselves gave us a name: Doom Slayer.

Doom 3 is said to take place in one of the multiple universes that connect Hell. In its first expansion, Resurrection of Evil, some tablets appear engraved with the figure of Doom Guy, as if he were some sort of revered leader.

With an upgraded suit and a story set on Mars, The Doom Slayer once again destroyed the demonic hordes with his natural talent and was then sent back to Hell.. We’ll have to wait until DOOM Eternal, its latest opus, to see what really happened. The Doom Slayer and the Doom Guy were the same person. Doom Guy wandered through Hell fighting with endless fury until he was found by a civilization, who recycled him to reveal a horrible truth: Earth is in danger again after all this time. However, The Doom Slayer is now a fearsome and unstoppable demigod with superhuman abilities.

By excessively avoiding spoilers and his fate in the Doom Eternal DLCs, which practically puts an end to it, here is the story of this iconic character who has only increased his legend in the world of shooters and video games in general. If you want more details on each of their titles, you can see it in this article published before Doom Eternal.

What is the future of DOOM?

As a fan of the franchise, I couldn’t be happier with the treatment that has been given to its last two titles, even offering additional levels of Doom 64 to better justify the story of the character, but above all of the enormous artistic richness that it brings to the Hugo Martin sagawho in 2016 was the artistic director and in Eternal, directly the game director.

Of course, id Software has confirmed that it will continue to develop more installments of the franchise and that its universe is very rich in stories to explore. However, The only song we have is called “Doom: Year Zero”., a game that was leaked during the FTC lawsuit against Microsoft in famous slides revealing many future Bethesda titles. Will it return to a fictional beginning? Will they somehow salvage the campaign from the canceled Call of Duty-like Doom 4? The possibilities are numerous, although with the pardon of Doom Slayer, fans are starting to turn their eyes towards id Software’s other great forgotten franchise, Quake.