Is Doom 64 a canon prequel to Doom 4? (Outdated topic)

[whatup876]

I thought "prequel" meant more "it came after X but canonically takes place before it" instead of something that existed before.

I feel like whether or not 64 and 4 are related could either be vague enough to be open for theories and such or even go for a literally messy lore.

Like the manual's story for Doom 2 describes Doomguy's arrival at Earth a lot differently from the intermission text after you first defeat the Spider Mastermind.

Doom's story never matter when id themselves blatantly didn't follow it and were like "heh, whatever".

And i'm pretty sure D64 itself could be stated to take place after 1 instead of 2.

 

The games also have different art directions and styles, which makes me wonder if exploring different takes and art styles for Doom could potential be a better way to "expand" the series than coming up with a unified lore because by writing a "universe", it feels like you could create some boundries/limitations for things that may not work in the "Doom universe" even when they could fit/work in the overall series. (like, with Hell on Earth, imagine haunted houses corrupted by hell but we may not get that in Eternal or stuff like real life locations and landmarks corrupted by Hell, so you look at what the demons have done to Paris or Tokyo)

 

Maybe even use concepts from any version of Doom and execute it in a different version of Doom (most D1/2 originating stuff in general but also Soulcube in D2RPG) or even occasionally bringing back actual designs but changing them a bit to fit a certain verison (Eternal with the classic designs) because the lack of story almost feels like what makes this series fun with experimentation. (as long as a game is good and the stuff manages to fit) (But also because the reboot has a lot of new content for the gameplay like enemies, guns and mechanics that it's fun to imagine it with different looks and twists)

 

Like, having too many games and too many different versions can be a bad thing due to saturation and identity crysis but i feel like a lack of "lore" in Doom is why it works that the series has different official portrayals, there's fan theories on its "lore", there's mods and wads and fanmade Realm667 guns and demons and there's fanmade redesigns of demons you'd find in fan art.

 

Because what kind of makes reboot Doom's direction interesting is that it's someone else's take on Doom, so if it was part of the very first game, we probably wouldn't have something like a BFG9000 in it, so the thing that kind of rubs me the wrong way about the "Doom universe" is that it's more like someone else's Doom universe.

It's not bad and has good ideas in it, but it's not as "definitive" as it looks like.

 

I admire the effort they put in this and even the throwbacks and tributes to other games and all, but something i think about is how much of the direction is from id themselves and whether or not Bethesda or ZeniMax have something to do with it. (there were dragons in concept art)

 

Anyway, if they acknowledge Doom 64 i wonder how they're going to refer to the Unmaker and Mother Demon, since those are unnamed in the game and i might as well refered to them wrong, if they are in fact named Alien laster and The Boss. (not to be confused with the MGS3 character)

[Gez]

43 minutes ago, whatup876 said:

I thought "prequel" meant more "it came after X but canonically takes place before it" instead of something that existed before.

Yeah, originally it was a portmanteau of pre- and sequel.

 

But language changes and sometimes words that start with a precise meaning just become more and more vague as time passes.

[Koko Ricky]

When will people realize that Doom does not have any official canon, that it is the same fundamental story being told in slightly different ways with each game?

[Quasar]

12 hours ago, GoatLord said:

When will people realize that Doom does not have any official canon, that it is the same fundamental story being told in slightly different ways with each game?

Once id Software takes an actual stance one way or the other. As long as it's just a loosely connected web of games that make off hand references to each other, people can and will theorize to the greatest extent possible. Once there's some official stance on the matter, that no longer remains possible w/o disregarding anything new added to the series.

[seed]

Also, it is quite obviously not the same story retold in different ways, not when games like Doom 64 make very clear implications that its events take place after the first 2 games.

 

"The plot focuses on events following the original games in the series. An evil entity known as the Mother Demon has survived and brought back the decaying dead creatures the player once killed. It is up to him, the lone space marine, to stop the legions once again."

 

I utterly refuse to take that as anything but a continuation of the original story.

[whatup876]

15 hours ago, GoatLord said:

When will people realize that Doom does not have any official canon, that it is the same fundamental story being told in slightly different ways with each game?

 

Ever since 3 was more story focused and 2016 had lore.

Eternal even has a lore book as part of its collector's edition.

Meanwhile, Bethesda decides Fallout's universe matters even less for it to make sense.

 

Edit: also, to add up to my previous post, to me Doom's "universe" is gameplay, levels, enemies, mechanics, guns and even art direction.

So, there's a lot that you can technically expand on without being "story".

 

Sometimes i wonder if one would consider Doom's story to be a "black box" for the series, whether it means too much cutscene time or the story twisting the theme around like what the novels and 2005 movie did.

Edited November 21, 2019 by whatup876
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