Was the Doom Slayer originally intended to be a regular Space Marine?

[The Nate]

In DOOM, the Doom Slayer is the leader of the Night Sentinels.

 

The E3 2015 trailer seems to have implied ot herwise. If you look in the beginning where he holds the Praetor Suit's helmet before putting it on, you can see the word "F-90" where the red rune is in the final.

E3:

Final:

This seems to imply that the Doom Slayer would've been a usual Space Marine instead.

[Linguica]

It's possible, especially considering that id people have said that the story only got finalized extremely late in the process. I think it's more likely that they purposely changed the helmet texture to remove the weird rune so they wouldn't give anything away about the Doom4guy's, uh, unusual history. This is fairly common in trailers and so forth (see, e.g., Infinity War, where the trailer shows a character fighting who doesn't actually appear in that battle in the movie).

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

I would suggest that this could hint at his backstory, but that's a wild interpretation. Most likely what our good Badministrator said is true. Trailers always lie, you know.

[Deleted_Account]

Maybe I’m misremembering it but im positive that I’ve seen early Doom 2016 concept art that depicts the slayer as a space marine. I think there was an image of the helmet with marine mottos spray painted on it like the marines from the movie Aliens, I think they might have even been posted on DoomWorld.

Edited May 5, 2018 by Ex Oblivione

[DMPhobos]

I think Hugo Martin mentioned on the noclip documentary that the story came so late into the production, that when he was asked how late he refused to answer saying it would make him sound "irresponsible", so i think linguica's right on that, and posibly the original template for the player in the game was to have just another space marine as everyone expected before they retooled him into the Doom Slayer

[geo]

A late story always makes me wonder just how late, since they need to animate things and record voice work. Not to mention ship the game out or get it approved by the ESRB. So does late mean 6 months before release? 1 month? Maybe it means they had a meeting at the start, itemized mechanics, level ideas and then said oh should we have a story? The world may never know.

 

One of the quality testers or Bethesda / Zenimax probably played the game without a story and asked... "what am I doing here? Am I the bad guy? Are the aliens good? Cyberdemon? Spider Mastermind? What are those? Why isn't there some sort of villain? Youtubers won't play through this to publicize the game if there's no story. There's no reason to play through it completely."

Edited May 6, 2018 by geo

[snapshot]

If you look closely at the reflection in the first shot you can see his bald head.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

Being Doom, it doesn't really need a story. That said, the original Doom did have a backstory (in the manual), but it didn't really make much difference since it really boiled down to "you're a badass, go kill monsters."

 

However, Doom (2016) has surprisingly rich lore, which leads me to believe that at least some of it had been ironed out early on and the plot proper only really took shape later on. Also, in reference to QA at Bethesda/Zenimax, it's probable that they were considering "what will draw a wider audience" instead of "how can we pander to the existing fanbase" and decided to create a story and villain to populate the game's plot.

 

Not saying the existing fanbase hates a game plot, just that when you're playing Doom, a plot is largely irrelevant. Why should I care why demons are attacking an underground base in Antarctica? I just want to play the game.

 

Having said that, that actually sounds like a pretty cool (pun intended) setting for a Doom wad. I wonder if there's one like that...

[The Nate]

2 minutes ago, dmg_64 said:

If you look closely at the reflection in the first shot you can see his bald head.

Are you sure that's his head and not a piece of the ground peeking out from the helmet's head hole?

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

4 minutes ago, Sgt Nate V said:

Are you sure that's his head and not a piece of the ground peeking out from the helmet's head hole?

It's the same color as the rest of the background, so it probably is the ground.

[geo]

Bald head? Same color as the ground? We've nailed it... Doom Slayer is no ordinary space marine. He's a an imp. The fact he can scale objects! He never talks!

 

Its all so clear now! Clear like the visor on that helmet.

 

 

I'm off to Reddit to go blow some minds!

Edited May 6, 2018 by geo

[snapshot]

Heh, was thinking about the model that appears in game files when I saw it.

[Aquila Chrysaetos]

It also explains why he can run at 55 miles per hour, jump six feet vertically, carry three vehicle-mounted weapons on top of six others, and the BFG9000 all at once.

[Lila Feuer]

I only noticed this just now for some reason, that's interesting. TBH I think I may be in the minority that kinda wished he was just a marine still instead of Memeslayer, every-pwad-is-canon destroyer of Hells.

[igg]

I don't think Doom Slayer being the leader of Knight Sentinels necessarily means he's not from Earth. This could be explained either by time travelling or multiverse. I know many people dislike the multiverse idea but it can be cool if executed well (like in Bioshock Infinite).

 

Actually I think Slayer is a UAC soldier from another timeline (very likely the original Doom - 2 - 64 one) who travelled tine and dimensions in his rage. He accompanied and finally led the Knight Sentinels. He killed demons in past, present and future hell (I think thats even mentioned in one of the lore entries) and was buried in stones in a past hell, which finally led to his discovery by Hayden in the current timeline. I think the time travel approach is more likely than the multiverse one.

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by igg

[Deleted_Account]

In the Advanced Research Complex there is a log titled Tier 3 Manifest, there is mention of pandimensional existence. So it's possible the developers were thinking of the multiverse and so on.

[pamo0850]

Yes and no.  There are many theories about who the Doomslayer is but one of the main ones is that he is Doom guy from the original games and the praetor suit is a modded version of his mega-armor which is why it looks "modern".  But I think he was initially supposed to be a genetically engineered super soldier but they retconned the story.

[Eurisko]

On 8/19/2019 at 12:03 AM, pamo0850 said:

Yes and no.  There are many theories about who the Doomslayer is but one of the main ones is that he is Doom guy from the original games and the praetor suit is a modded version of his mega-armor which is why it looks "modern".  But I think he was initially supposed to be a genetically engineered super soldier but they retconned the story.

I think it is the original marine. Apparently we will find out in Eternal.