"It's too cartoony"

[TakenStew22]

This is the most common complaint I've seen on the trailer, and I don't get it. The demons almost look completely identical to their original counterparts, and I love it. People were also saying that the demons in 2016 looked cartoony aswell.

 

What do you guys think?

[[McD] James]

Never heard anybody say this.

[Ramiel]

I can only assume they mean "cartoony" by stuff like the Former Human's green hair and overall more vibrant color scheme.

 

I personally love the art direction and have zero complaints towards any of the designs we've seen so far.

 

Can't be any worse than the Hell Guards, anyway. They just looked super out place compared to everything else.

Edited September 7, 2018 by Pepsiman

[Solmyr]

The Demons from Doom from the original Id Tech1 games always looked cartoony maybe the Barons and Hell Knights were a partial exception. Doom 2016 also had cartoony monsters, the Imp and Mancubus look even goofier than their old counterparts, Doom Eternal also has cartoony designs such as the Hell Knights with eyes, Pain Elementals and their wiggling muscular arms wich moves in an even goofier manner than the original Pain Elemental, the demons were always cartoony in design as it's an integral part of the franchise, only the Hell Guards as Pepsiman said looked way too cartoony and out of place in comparison to everything else so i don't see what those people are complaining about.

[igg]

I'd even say Eternal looks less cartoonish than its predecessor. Eg the Baron of Hell looks much more realistic, the red Lego brick version seems gone.

[Dragonfly]

The only thing that really felt cartoony was some of the glory kills. Bonking in the skull of a revenant, the "OHH NOOOO" type reaction the pain elemental have to having it's eye ripped out, etc. That said, these things are fun, something that AAA games seemingly forgot about for around a decade. If you're looking for something that is completely boring more realistic, go play something else. :)

[Bridgeburner56]

Yeah I actually really enjoyed the bonkers elements. The caco swallowing a grenade, the pain elemental's shock before getting impaled, all made me laugh out loud and clap. I think doom should be ridiculous. Realism has no place here. 

 

Rip and tear 

[seed]

7 hours ago, Solmyr said:

The Demons from Doom from the original Id Tech1 games always looked cartoony maybe the Barons and Hell Knights were a partial exception. Doom 2016 also had cartoony monsters, the Imp and Mancubus look even goofier than their old counterparts, Doom Eternal also has cartoony designs such as the Hell Knights with eyes, Pain Elementals and their wiggling muscular arms wich moves in an even goofier manner than the original Pain Elemental, the demons were always cartoony in design as it's an integral part of the franchise, only the Hell Guards as Pepsiman said looked way too cartoony and out of place in comparison to everything else so i don't see what those people are complaining about.

 

This would probably be what the people who complained about the game looking cartoony meant.

 

Personally, I think it looks fantastic and I don't find anything we've seen so far "cartoony", or at least not in the sense used by other people. Realism has no place in Doom anyway.

[Bottomsup]

11 hours ago, Pepsiman said:

Can't be any worse than the Hell Guards, anyway. They just looked super out place compared to everything else.

I'd say, cyberdemon looked almost as poor as the Guards too.

[Deleted_Account]

 

[snapshot]

The Humans look like Disney Movie characters, But otherwise everything else looks fine.

[igg]

1 hour ago, tempdecal.wad said:

The Humans look like Disney Movie characters, But otherwise everything else looks fine.

I agree on this. It really felt wrong.

[Teivman]

Doom was never realistic to begin with, And it's just a video game.

[Touchdown]

Since I'm probably the first person that has used the term 'cartoony' in regards to DE I think I should comment on that subject and offer some explaination. Bear in mind I have already talked about all of this in different threads so I'll be repeating some of that here.

Also, I already know 99% of people think my opinions are stupid. Just thought I'd mention that I'm aware of that.

 

1.
When I said that DE is cartoony I was talking pretty much only about certain enemy desings/redesigns introduced in the game. Those include: new Zombies, new Possessed Soldiers, new Mancubi, Arachnotrons and Pain Elementals. I don't use the word 'cartoony' in a literal sense but rather to emphasize the decision to move further away from a gritty visual realism in favour of a more over-exaggerated, stylized look. Comic book like if you prefer.

 

2.
One of the few things I was critical about in DOOM4 was the inconsistency of enemy art direction. On one hand you've got creatures that belong in the category of a grotesque, realistic depiction such as Possessed, Hellknights or Summoners. Even Cacodemons managed to look sufficiently and appropriately 'serious' while retaining the recognizable and iconic look. But on the other hand you've had monsters such as Lost Souls, Hell Guards, Pinky Demons or the Cyberdemon that either looked way too stylized or downright toy-like. Pinky is probably the biggest offender there where both its look, sounds and behaviour were straight out of a cartoon about an angry monster that trips over its own legs.

DE seems to have leaned even more in that direction. The new Zombies look almost like something out of a Scooby-Doo with their stupid faces. A massive step down from the really cool looking, and way more original, counterparts in D4. Arachnotrons should have been more sinister, as they appear in the teaser. Don't even get me started on the Pain Elemental. All the other enemies suffer from an unnecessary nostalgia-pandering. They're all too faithful to the originals with no regard to the fact that the original game was made with a much more primitive technology. The original designs worked within the graphical fidelity of the first two games. They look comic book like / cartoony when considered without context, yes, but I don't believe they were meant to be silly and ridiculous. Why?

 

3.
Note that id has always been pushing more and more towards an aggressive, gritty visual realism with their games. They went from goofy Wolf3D style to a more realistic approach in DOOM, ramping it up with some really messed up and grotesque monsters in Quake, brutal abominations in Quake2 and later on various horrors in DOOM3. As technology was improving they've been consistently making their worlds and characters more gritty / realistic and less goofy. So I definitely disagree with the argument that just because the original DOOM monsters look cartoony now that means that recreating them 1:1 in a modern engine is commendable. It ignores the original intention.

And the original intention was not, as Hugo Martin tries to tell you, a goofy, silly and utterly ridiculous game. DOOM got rid of lives and score to make it more realistic. They've added a diminishing lighting to make the environments scarier - something that gets easily overlooked because with hardware rendering in modern source ports the diminishing lighting is almost unnoticable. It was supposed to be scary, dark and fast. Not a horror game, not without over the top elements but not completely silly and cartoony either.

 

4.
The bottom line is I believe visually the new DOOM games should have been more in line with the original progression of id titles and more consistent without jumping between so many different styles. And they mostly are. The environments look realistic, weapons look realistic, a lot of the monsters look realistic. But they just keep pushing those action figures into the mix, trying to bury everything that was ever serious or scary in the franchise. And successfully it seems because apparently goofiness is what people want out of DOOM.

I don't believe the game would have lost ANYTHING if monster designs were all rooted in the gritty realism already present in great quantities. In fact it would have been way more visually consistent this way.

BONUS NOTES:

>> I disagree that the visible eyes make the DE Hellknight look cartoony. From what I've seen it looks pretty cool.
>> I strongly disagree that realism has no place in DOOM. But I am talking about the visual realism as seen in environments and weapon designs. I expected enemy designs to follow.
>> I disagree that the human characters look overstylized. I don't see the problem there. Also it's funny that some people get offended when someone complains about silly monster designs but human characters that are maybe a tiny bit stylized are automatically Disney characters somehow. I know it's an exaggeration but still.
>> I do not consider the arcade gameplay of the new DOOM games to be unfitting. It works very well from the gameplay perspective.
>> I disagree that the D4 Imps look silly. I think they are stylized but not overstylized like some of the other monsters.
>> If you are one of the people who think that the D4 Pinky does not look out of place in the D4 environments then I don't think anything I said makes any sense to you. Also you're weird.

[Teivman]

At least what we got was better then the original concept for DOOM4, That was trying to be Call of duty levels gritty.

Edited September 7, 2018 by MrD!zone

[Shaviro]

Back when Doom3 was coming out we had the exact same conversation - just substitute "cartoony" with "dark" and "arcadey" with "scary".

Doom3 took one aspect of Doom and ran with it. Doom 2016 took another. Neither are really true to the original and they don't need to be. 

Personally I'd love to see a game that captures more of Doom's aspects, but I'm just going to enjoy the ride and see what comes of it. Doom 2016 was good and I'm sure Doom Eternal will be too.

[Koko Ricky]

In the unused concept art for Doom '16, the original cybdermon looked like the stuff of nightmares, while the final version had cartoon proportions (massive jaw, thick arms and legs). Both are hyper detailed and demonic, but the former was scary while the latter was badass. Kind of like the difference between "Alien" and "Aliens." So it kind of depends on what you're looking for, aesthetically. I tend to crave the more sinister look more, and Doom Eternal straddles the line enough that we're looking to get a healthy dose of both.

[Avoozl]

The new cyberdemon looked like a goofy golum with moose antlers.

[pigherp64]

1 hour ago, Avoozl said:

The new cyberdemon looked like a goofy golum with moose antlers.

heh, true. it really does look like it has moose antlers, see!

[seed]

10 hours ago, Touchdown said:

Arachnotrons

>> If you are one of the people who think that the D4 Pinky does not look out of place in the D4 environments then I don't think anything I said makes any sense to you. Also you're weird.

 

Even if 99% of people disagree they're your opinions and you shouldn't change them because others find them stupid.

 

Anyway, I think the Arachnotron looks the least cartoony out of all monsters you mentioned. I can definitely see why people say the new Mancubus and the Pinky look "cartoony", but really I think they mix well with the style and tone of the game and therefore, don't look out of place. I'm bizzare, I know.

[TakenStew22]

On 9/7/2018 at 7:04 AM, Dragonfly said:

The only thing that really felt cartoony was some of the glory kills. Bonking in the skull of a revenant, the "OHH NOOOO" type reaction the pain elemental have to having it's eye ripped out, etc. That said, these things are fun, something that AAA games seemingly forgot about for around a decade. If you're looking for something that is completely boring more realistic, go play something else. :)

 

23 hours ago, MrD!zone said:

Doom was never realistic to begin with, And it's just a video game.

All this. Doom was never realistic and always looked "cartoony".

[snapshot]

I disagree, I believe it only looked cartoony due to technical limitations back then, I think that's why id Software was leaning towards a more realistic look with Doom 3, Realistic does not necessarily mean boring, you can have the best of both worlds, but eh... since apparently most people are fine with that I guess they'll just roll with it.

[Robo_Cola]

40 minutes ago, tempdecal.wad said:

I disagree, I believe it only looked cartoony due to technical limitations back then, I think that's why id Software was leaning towards a more realistic look with Doom 3, Realistic does not necessarily mean boring, you can have the best of both worlds, but eh... since apparently most people are fine with that I guess they'll just roll with it.

Even though I do like the art direction they're going with on Doom Eternal I have to agree with you.  I believe some of the core members from the old ID even said so in interviews.  All things considered I think that Doom Eternal looks less "cartoony" than Doom 2016, especially the zombies.

Edited September 8, 2018 by STILES

[Koko Ricky]

Doom has always been stuck somewhere between "cartoony"—exaggerated proportions and fantastical designs—and "realistic"—high levels of detail and dramatic use of lighting. These two styles of art direction clash a bit with modern hardware capabilities. I would say for the most part it works fine, keeping in the spirit of the series. Where it doesn't work is when something that could potentially be abjectly horrific or nightmarish is steered too much in the direction of cool/badass.

[Kaos]

I would like them to hit the sweet spot. Not silent hill but also not duke nukem.

[Novaseer]

It's all shaders in the Hell on Earth segments. The Phobos segment doesn't look any more cartoony than Doom '16 did.

[igg]

After releasing first pictures of Doom 2016 many people complained the Cacos are not colorful enough. If I remember correctly id even made them a little more colorful. Now people ask for a more dark look. Btw I also prefer the latter.

 

Doom 2016 looked very cartoony in the gameplay videos and pre release screenshots. Eg I really couldn't stand the look of the Baron and Pinky. But while playing their cartoonyness was hardly noticable for me.

[Deleted_Account]

It's not Simpsons Doom.

[Kristian Nebula]

14 hours ago, pigherp64 said:

heh, true. it really does look like it has moose antlers, see!

 

I wonder how good a tincture a cyberdemon antler powder extract would make. Secret weapon behind the stamina of Doomslayer!

[silentzorah]

Only problem I have with the aesthetic of the game is that I just don't like the big gray classic medikits.  They look a little out of place.  Everything else looks fine, though.