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2016 marked the gloriously bloody return of Doom, one of the single most important first
person shooter franchises of all time. The new game is launching almost 23 years after
the original did in December of 1993. And it’s pretty fitting that this entry in the
series is being published by Bethesda because much like the series that put that company
on the map, The Elder Scrolls, the main source of inspiration for the first Doom game was
an overwhelming love it’s creators had for Dungeons and Dragons. The idea began with
the guys at id Software ending a long work day with a D&D session. Designer John Romero
described the genesis of the idea in an interview, saying “One day we were playing Dungeons
& Dragons at the HQ of our company...like we had done for years. John Carmack, lead
programmer, was Dungeon Master as usual. I got greedy trying to procure a magic sword
and caused the entire world to be overrun by demons. Something just clicked. We all
loved sci-fi, especially Aliens: it was a fast-action movie and id wanted fast-action
games. So what if – instead of finding aliens, like in every movie in the world – a player
opened up a portal to hell?” From that D&D game, one of the most important first person
shooters ever was born. Still, the idea of an Aliens game was almost
too cool for the team to give up. They even pursued 20th Century Fox to ask if they could
use the license. In the end though, they decided that they wanted total creative freedom and
decided not to pay for the film’s rights. But the game they ended up making did still
owe a lot of its look and feel to the Alien series. The team kept a few copies of H.R.
Giger’s art book, the Swiss artist who designed the look of the Alien, on their desks at all
time. Giger was well-known for creating horrific, surreal and vaguely sexual art and the team
hoped that they could capture what it would be like to walk around in one of his terrifying
worlds. According to Romero, “That's why we have walls that are like spines and screaming
faces, and marines impaled on spikes. It inspired hellish monsters...”
Today, Doom is known for it’s fast-paced, run-and-gun gameplay and never-ending action.
But if one of the original designers at id had gotten his way, the game would have turned
out very differently. When development on Doom started, one of the founders of id, Tom
Hall, had become very invested in the story of the game, going so far as to write a long
Doom Bible which he believed would create a satisfying world and story. This included
a large cast of characters, a lot of dialogue and even multiple endings. In fact, Hall’s
version of Doom actually sounds pretty similar to the Western RPG’s published by Bethesda
today. The creator of Doom’s engine, John Carmack, had no interest in this version of
the game though, later saying, "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's
expected to be there, but it's not that important." This clash led to Hall leaving the company.
And even though you may disagree with Carmack’s opinion, it’s hard to argue that his vision
worked out with Doom, Since the game went on to become the most installed program on
PCs in 1995, even beating Windows ‘95 itself. As for the newest Doom, being bought by Bethesda
changed the development of the game in a big way. After abandoning a remake of Doom 2’s
story set on Earth for playing too much like a Call of Duty game, the team at id started
from scratch. And according to Doom’s producer Marty Stratton, looked to Bethesda's work
with the Fallout franchise for inspiration. “We talked a lot to Todd Howard and to the
Bethesda team, because they went through the same thing when they were working on Fallout
3. You always want to respect the game and that fondness for it and what it means to
people, but at the same time we've looked ahead with every decision and every idea.
We know what [players are] here for, we know [they're] here for a Doom game, we’re going
to give [them] the best version of Doom.” As a nod to this, the new Doom even includes
a hidden Skyrim reference, where players may come across a dead demon with a very familiar
looking helmet and of course, an arrow in the knee. So will the new game go over as
well with Doom fans as Fallout 3 did with Fallout lovers? Only time will tell, but if
the early reviews are any indication, the new Bethesda-owned version seems to be in
pretty good hands. No comment showcase this time around but that
leaves plenty of time for trivia. But first be sure to like, subscribe and share this
video so we get a chance to cover Doom more in the future! Oh and what did you guys think
of the new Doom? Feel free to let us know in the comments below. Alright so last week
we asked you to name Conrad Kellogg’s now dead wife from Fallout 4 and the answer was
A) Sarah! This week our question is all about Doom 2016: the new “Glory Kills” melee
system was inspired by what famous Doom mod?