Doom (franchise)

• 1. Introduction

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  Doom is an American media franchise created by five people: John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud, and Tom Hall. Its hero never receives a proper name. Players call him Doomguy, the Doom Marine, or, in later entries, the Doom Slayer. He works under the Union Aerospace Corporation, and his task is to stop hordes of demons and undead from invading Earth. What did a game built around a silent soldier and a handful of weapons change about computer games? Why did the studio behind it struggle to return to its own creation? And what keeps bringing people back to the same demons?

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• 2. Rules of the Game

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  Eight weapons sit at the center of the original Doom, and the designers arranged them so that none became obsolete once another was found. The player carries every one at the same time. That makes room for a tactic called “gun juggling”, which means rapidly switching weapons to suit the moment. Levels add mazes, colored key cards, and hidden areas. Because the genre was still in its infancy in the early 1990s, technical limits meant the player could neither jump nor look up and down. Still, a player could sprint at a gap and let momentum carry across it. Newer titles added these abilities, and the 2016 series leaned heavily on platforming.

  IBM-compatible computers got their first taste of 3D graphics, third-dimension spatiality, and networked multiplayer through the original Doom. The game also supported player-created modifications through the Doom WAD format. Story took a back seat in the classic series, and much of it lived in the manuals rather than in the games. The action usually unfolds in sprawling bases on Mars or its moons, with some stretches set in Hell. Recent titles, notably the 2016 series, put far more weight on narrative.

  How that sparse game reached players, and why it spread so fast, starts with a single engine built in 1992.

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• 3. Shareware Beginnings

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  In 1992, John Carmack built a new game engine, the Doom engine, while the rest of the id Software team finished Spear of Destiny, a prequel to Wolfenstein 3D. The game launched in 1993 in an episodic format. The first episode was shareware, and two more were sold by mail order. John Romero largely designed that first episode. The full version sold one million copies. For several years, the term “Doom clone” named the new genre that we now call first-person shooters.

  Doom II: Hell on Earth arrived in 1994 as a commercial release. Only minor changes were made at a technical level. It offered new enemies, a weapon called the “Super Shotgun”, and more complex levels. In 1995 came Master Levels for Doom II, an expansion that added 20 levels. The re-release of the original game that year added a fourth episode.

  From 1995, id Software turned its attention to the Quake series. Two more Doom games followed, largely made by third parties under id's supervision. Final Doom held 64 levels on the Doom II engine, organised into two episodes. TNT: Evilution came from the modding group TeamTNT and was completed in November 1995. The Plutonia Experiment came from Dario and Milo Casali of TNT and was completed in January 1996.

  Midway Games built Doom 64 under id supervision for release in 1997. It used a new engine with larger sprites and higher quality textures. That engine let designers adjust the geometry of a map during play. The classic metal soundtrack gave way to an ambient and eerie one, and the new atmosphere would inspire later entries. Id refused to let the game be called Doom 3, since that name was reserved for a possible return after Quake.

  That reserved name resurfaced in 2000, after the studio had lost several of its key people.

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• 4. The Long Wait

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  By 2000, the troubled development of Quake had caused major staffing changes at id, and several key figures from Doom had left. Romero, the original designer, was fired in 1996. In the meantime the company had hired Tim Willits, a former Doom modder. A new non-Doom game was being designed, but staff showed a “lack of enthusiasm” for it and strongly wanted to remake the original Doom. John Carmack and others announced internally that they were working on a Doom game and would continue unless the company fired them. Paul Steed was fired, yet the work went on.

  Doom 3 was unveiled later that year, with Willits leading the design. It ran on the new id Tech 4 engine, which allowed greater realism and interactivity. The game used voice acting and gave narrative more weight than earlier titles. A demo shown at E3 2002 leaked online, well ahead of the 2004 release date. Doom 3 was the first Doom title in seven years, and it helped renew interest in the franchise.

  The expansion Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil followed in 2005, developed by Nerve Software rather than id. A 2012 BFG Edition bundled both releases with a new expansion, The Lost Mission. On the 29th of March 2021, Doom 3: VR Edition reached PlayStation 4 VR and PlayStation 5 through backwards compatibility. It carries all the BFG Edition material except multiplayer.

  Doom 4 entered development in the mid 2000s alongside Rage. It was first planned as a rework of Doom II. Hints appeared at QuakeCon in 2007, and the game was formally announced in 2008. Response to preview material was negative, and fans nicknamed the project “Call of Doom” after a perceived similarity to Call of Duty. Bethesda marketing vice president Pete Hines later said that “it wasn't Doom enough”.

  Rage did not succeed as hoped, so publisher ZeniMax requested a reboot of Doom 4 and moved the Rage staff onto it. This version was built on the Rage code base and suffered from disputes among staff, particularly between managers of the two projects. The game was cancelled in 2013. John Carmack, one of the few remaining veterans of the classic series at id, left the studio that November.

  The gap years still produced games. Mobile spinoffs included Doom RPG in 2005, plus Doom II RPG and Doom Resurrection in 2009. The 2010 Xbox Live Arcade re-release of Doom II added No Rest for the Living, an expansion by Nerve Software. It followed the classic chapter structure, with eight primary levels and one secret level, and it was packaged with the BFG Edition of Doom 3 in 2012.

  Even after the cancellation, Willits stated that the next Doom game was still the team's focus.

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• 5. The Slayer Returns

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  Hugo Martin was hired as creative director in 2013, and he became a key figure in the revived franchise. The game was announced simply as Doom in 2014. It was released in 2016 to generally positive reception. Its main additions were a glory kill mechanic and extra platforming maneuvers. The multiplayer mode received three small downloadable releases during its first year. On the 19th of July 2017, all three were released for free with the 6.66 update.

  The 2016 game was not originally described as a continuation or an origin story. Plot details in the sequel Doom Eternal, along with commentary from Martin, later framed it as a continuation of the classic series. The 2020 re-release of Doom 64 included an expansion called The Lost Levels. It was meant “to connect 'old' Doom to 'new' Doom”.

  Doom VFR, a virtual reality spinoff, came out in 2017 to generally positive reception. It offers a single-player campaign and reuses enemies and other assets from the 2016 game. It was the last Doom title under Willits' leadership, ahead of his departure in 2019. The year 2018 marked the 25th anniversary of the franchise. That year the Doom Slayer also became a playable character in id Software's Quake Champions.

  Doom Eternal, directed by Hugo Martin, was released in 2020. It generated $450 million in revenue over its first year, double the launch revenue of the previous title. Some commentators pointed to its timing, which coincided with a worldwide wave of interest in gaming during COVID-19 restrictions on social gathering. The game was made in id Tech 7, which improved on the id Tech 6 engine behind its predecessor. Its expansion, The Ancient Gods, arrived in two parts, one in October 2020 and the other in March 2021.

  In March 2021, Martin discussed directions for future games, including time travel. He also floated a game set between Doom 64 and Doom from 2016, when the Slayer “first came to that place with the Sentinels, almost like a more medieval setting”. An internal ZeniMax presentation dated 2020 later surfaced in the 2023 case FTC v. Microsoft. It showed a game called Doom: Year Zero in development, projected for FY2023, with downloadable add-ons marked for 2023 and 2024. The document predated Microsoft's 2021 acquisition of ZeniMax, and the game stayed in production. It was revealed at the 2024 Xbox Games Showcase as Doom: The Dark Ages.

  All the while, one of the original creators had been extending the 1993 game on his own.

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• 6. Romero's Return

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  In 2018, John Romero announced Sigil, an unofficial “fifth episode” of the original 1993 game. It was released for free through his website in 2019. A paid version added a soundtrack by the guitarist Buckethead. Although Sigil was developed independently, Bethesda added it to the console ports of Doom as a free patch that October, alongside the two chapters of Final Doom.

  Romero confirmed in August 2021 that a second Sigil expansion, using the Doom II engine, was in development. In March 2022 he released a new Doom II level called One Humanity. Its proceeds were donated as humanitarian aid for Ukraine during the Russian invasion. It was the first Doom II level Romero had designed since 1994, and it raised 25,000 euros by the 7th of March.

  Sigil II arrived in 2023 and was critically acclaimed. Like the first, it was made freely available by id Software, this time through the add-ons menu of the console ports of Doom and Doom II.

  In August 2024, id Software worked with Nightdive Studios and MachineGames on Doom + Doom II. This “definitive rerelease” gathers every game before Doom 64, along with Sigil and a new two-episode expansion pack called Legacy of Rust. The release features new enemies and weapons.

  Another Doom release of 2023 met a less happy end.

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• 7. Spinoffs and Adaptations

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  Mighty Doom, a spinoff for Android and iOS, was developed by Alpha Dog Games and released in March 2023. Microsoft announced in May 2024 that it was shutting down Alpha Dog. That decision led to the discontinuation of Mighty Doom in August.

  In 2005, Universal Pictures released the first live-action film adaptation, simply titled Doom. It starred Karl Urban and Dwayne Johnson. In 2019, Universal released a second film, Doom: Annihilation, direct-to-video and starring Amy Manson.

  Pocket Books published four Doom novels between June 1995 and January 1996, written by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver. They are titled Knee Deep in the Dead, Hell on Earth, Infernal Sky, and Endgame. In the novels the unnamed Marine goes by “Flynn Taggart” or “Fly”. The first two books feature recognizable locations and situations from the first two games. John Shirley adapted the 2005 film into a novelization for Pocket Star Books.

  A second series arrived in 2008 from Matthew J. Costello, who had worked on the story and scripts for Doom 3 and Resurrection of Evil. His books novelize the story of Doom 3. The first, Doom 3: Worlds on Fire, was published on the 26th of February 2008. The second, Doom 3: Maelstrom, followed in March 2009. A PC Gamer critic called the first installment “the only one genuinely worth bothering with for the laughs” and described the others as largely unrelated sci-fi stories.

  In May 1996, Marvel Comics released a one-shot comic as a giveaway for a video game convention. Steve Behling and Michael Stewart wrote it, with art by Tom Grindberg. It has gained a cult following for its over-the-top dialogue. Phrases such as “rip and tear” and “huge guts” have since been referenced by later Doom titles.

  Fantasy Flight Games published Doom: The Boardgame in 2004, designed by Kevin Wilson. In 2020, Critical Role published a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons module, Doom Eternal: Assault on Amaros Station, written by Christopher Lockey and Matthew Mercer. Its digital release came on the 16th of December 2020 through the Critical Role store.

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• 8. Reception and Sales

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  In 1996, Next Generation ranked the series 19th among the top games of all time. It argued that despite hundreds of copycats, “no one has ever been able to equal id's original, pulsing classic”. In 1999 the same magazine placed the series 25th on its “Top 50 Games of All Time”. It added that “the pixilated Barons of Hell and Cyber Demons still rank as some of the scariest things that can grace your screen”.

  The silent marine has fared well with list makers. In 2009, GameDaily put him on its list of “ten game heroes who fail at the simple stuff”. UGO Networks ranked him fourth among the best silent protagonists in 2012, praising his courage in carrying on silently against Hell's army. In 2013, Complex placed Doomguy 16th among the greatest soldiers in video games, calling him “the original video game space marine”. CraveOnline and VGRC both ranked him the fifth most “badass” male character in video game history.

  The original Doom sold 3.5 million physical copies and 1.15 million shareware copies between its 1993 release and 1999. Doom II sold 1.55 million copies of all types in the United States over the same period, with roughly another quarter of that figure sold in Europe. Together the two games reached some 5-6 million sales. Doom 3 sold 3.5 million copies from its 2004 release through 2007, along with many copies of Resurrection of Evil. That made it the most successful game in the series at that point.

  By 2004, the series had sold 8.5 million copies, and by 2005 the total stood at 10 million. The 2016 reboot sold over 2 million copies on PC alone between its May 2016 release and July 2017.

  The sales of Doom 64 were never disclosed, so one chapter of the franchise remains unmeasured.

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