Doom Without Demons?

[Rudolph]

Talking about the Quakes series got me thinking. 

 

Quake II was a dramatic departure from Quake in terms of setting and lore due to legal reasons, yet it is still accepted as a Quake game and the differences in settings could easily be explained thanks to Quake's original dimension-jumping premise anyway - which Quake III already sort of did.

 

Now that Doom has introduced the concept of a multiverse with Doom Eternal, do you think a Doom title that completely does away with demons like Quake II did away with the Lovecraftian bestiary could work? Or do you think Id Software would have to market it as an original intellectual property?

[kwc]

I'd argue that hell/demons are the single thread of identity left for the series, if they lose that, it would simply not be Doom any longer.

I have come to understand that Quake, from its inception, was a bit of a mixed bag thematically. That doesn't mean the whole shift to the Strogg in Q2 wasn't still a shock, but then you had Q3 that was 100% multiplayer and then Q4 was a Raven joint. What I'm getting at is that the quake series has, for better or worse, been merely a vessel for Id's game ideas and less of a cohesive universe. 

Doom, on the other hand, has the aforementioned thread of hell-identity, but that single thread supports the game series thematically.

I don't think they will go for a drastic shift in theme for Doom, although it may be possible to move further into their silly lore stuff. It'd be wise for them to just stop this current storyline though IMO.

[Rudolph]

Yeah well, given the current storyline, the demonic threat seems to have been dealt with for good, so that might serve as an additional incentive to introduce a new threat. Doom 2016 did introduce Angels as an antagonistic faction, after all.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Rudolph

[out_of_service]

DOOM without demons is like pizza without cheese. Get out of here with that nonsense.

[Okej5722]

I'd bet on eldritch abominations or generic evil aliens — seeing that angels and demons have probably been done to death already — but I assume ID likes money, so they'll probably keep using demons as enemies. Of course, people would still buy the games anyways even if demons weren't enemies anymore.

[magicsofa]

This lucky, lucky soul has never seen the first Doom movie

[thiccyosh]

Did you mean: Wolfenstein 3D?

[Csucskos]

No demons? It's usually called NoMo and in my opinion it's glorious.

[DynamiteKaitorn]

Wouldn't it just be closer to Chex Quest?

[Zulk RS]

I mean... if you did away with Demons, you'd have to introduce something that's a bigger threat. I can't think of anything that are a bigger threat than Demons.

 

Lovecraftian Elder Horrors don't count since I consider them to be close enough to Demons. ((I would classify Eldritch Horrors as Demons personally but I think I'm in the minority opinion in that regard.))

[Frost-Core]

Then add flying id Employees to the game

[sandwedge]

To win the next Doom game, you must kill me, an army of John Romeros.

[Rudolph]

2 hours ago, magicsofa said:

This lucky, lucky soul has never seen the first Doom movie

I did, actually. The movie basically took some of Doom 3 monsters and made them into mutants instead. They are still technically demons.

 

2 hours ago, Okej5722 said:

seeing that angels and demons have probably been done to death already

As far as I am aware, the only game where you do fight (mostly corrupted) angels is Doom Eternal, but even then, they are not very common.

 

We have yet to see a Doom game where the entire bestiary is angelic.

[Dusty_Rhodes]

"Doom.exe -nomonsters -warp 1 1"

[sandwedge]

21 minutes ago, Rudolph said:

As far as I am aware, the only game where you do fight (mostly corrupted) angels is Doom Eternal, but even then, they are not very common.

 

Yeah and I wasn't really a fan of fighting the non-Demons in Eternal.  You can maybe add some other enemy types like Eternal, but they can't possibly think a game completely without demons would be a good idea.  And the story doesn't really matter, you can always come up with some reason why the demons are back.  I mean it's not like the lore is even comprehensible to most people who probably just scan through the lore entries, if that, there's just way too much in there for its own good.

 

Then again I prefer Doom classic so maybe I'm not the target demographic anyway.

 

[Rudolph]

I prefer Classic Doom too, but I would not necessarily say no to fighting, say, UAC robots and cybernetically-enhanced human troops or angelic creatures. They could still behave like the common Doom enemy archetypes, but they would not be of demonic nature.

Edited April 15, 2022 by Rudolph

[Zulk RS]

5 hours ago, Rudolph said:

I prefer Classic Doom too, but I would not necessarily say no to fighting, say, UAC robots and cybernetically-enhanced human troops or angelic creatures. They could still behave like the common Doom enemy archetypes, but they would not be of demonic nature.

 

Accurate Angels are downright horrifying to look at with its many eyes, wings, weird ring-like stuff. Prime for being a scary new enemy to fight off. 

[RHhe82]

8 hours ago, Rudolph said:

As far as I am aware, the only game where you do fight (mostly corrupted) angels is Doom Eternal, but even then, they are not very common.

Common they are not, but there are games where you fight angelic beings. Bayonetta springs to mind, and weren’t there some in Devil May Cry -series? They are not FPS’s, though.

 

(I disregard some games where angelic beings are not in any sort of limelight, like in Nethack they are just another type of enemy in a huge bestiary, and only appear rarely).

[NiGHTMARE]

You also fight angels in the Darksiders series - mainly the first game IIRC.

 

Diablo 3 is another one, albeit most of the enemy angels in that are corrupted.

 

As for other potential enemies in the Doom series, they could go the D&D route and classify demons and devils as separate groups of beings (with demons being chaotic evil and devils lawful evil - there are also the neutral evil yugoloths, formerly known as daemons).

Edited April 16, 2022 by NiGHTMARE

[Megalyth]

On 4/15/2022 at 3:36 PM, Rudolph said:

Quake II was a dramatic departure from Quake in terms of setting and lore due to legal reasons

 

What were the legal troubles?

[Rudolph]

@Megalyth Not quite sure. I remember reading somewhere that Quake II was originally going to be an original IP, but then Id Software found themselves unable to use the title they had in mind due to it being already trademarked, so they ultimately settled for Quake II in the end.

 

I am sure someone more knowledgeable about the topic could confirm this or correct me there.

[QuaketallicA]

On 4/15/2022 at 12:36 PM, Rudolph said:

Talking about the Quakes series got me thinking. 

 

Quake II was a dramatic departure from Quake in terms of setting and lore due to legal reasons, yet it is still accepted as a Quake game and the differences in settings could easily be explained thanks to Quake's original dimension-jumping premise anyway - which Quake III already sort of did.

 

Now that Doom has introduced the concept of a multiverse with Doom Eternal, do you think a Doom title that completely does away with demons like Quake II did away with the Lovecraftian bestiary could work? Or do you think Id Software would have to market it as an original intellectual property?

It would work about as well as Doom the 2005 movie did when they decided to make "hell" and "demons" metaphorical rather than literal.

 

I hate the idea of a "multiverse" and Doom Eternal is nothing more than a sequel/reboot. Don't get me wrong, I love the story, but it is its own thing. Original Dooms were their own thing, Doom 3 is its own version of Doom, and 2016/Eternal are their own version. Yes there is some overlap and hinting at connection to the originals, but I still see them as separate. Different creative visions and way too much time in between to be connected.

 

With Quake the reason it is the same series is because the gameplay is basically the same. The setting is totally different, apart from small similarities in iconography here and there, it's a completely different experience. Only connecting thread is the style of shooter and upgraded version of same engine, which is all that really matters. It's Quake, it doesn't have or need much of a story. I always found it unnecessary for Quake 4 to revisit the Strogg/Human war from Quake 2. Just do something original instead in the same style of shooter, and it will pass for a Quake game.

[QuaketallicA]

On 4/16/2022 at 2:31 PM, Rudolph said:

@Megalyth Not quite sure. I remember reading somewhere that Quake II was originally going to be an original IP, but then Id Software found themselves unable to use the title they had in mind due to it being already trademarked, so they ultimately settled for Quake II in the end.

 

I am sure someone more knowledgeable about the topic could confirm this or correct me there.

I hadn't heard the trademark story before, but I had heard something similar that they couldn't get a name for it, so they just settled on Quake II, even though it was intended to be a different game. 

[Rudolph]

1 hour ago, QuaketallicA said:

I hadn't heard the trademark story before, but I had heard something similar that they couldn't get a name for it, so they just settled on Quake II, even though it was intended to be a different game. 

Yeah, you are probably right. I must be misremembering it.

 

1 hour ago, QuaketallicA said:

With Quake the reason it is the same series is because the gameplay is basically the same. The setting is totally different, apart from small similarities in iconography here and there, it's a completely different experience. Only connecting thread is the style of shooter and upgraded version of same engine, which is all that really matters. It's Quake, it doesn't have or need much of a story.

Well, that is sort of my point: if Doom 6 were to do away with Hell and demons completely, yet retain the same basic gameplay, would people still accept it as a Doom game? I mean, back when Quake II got release, I saw reviewers referring to it as "Doom 3".

 

Again, the reason why I think the first Doom movie does not count is that it just gives a different backstory for Doom monsters. When I say do away completely, I mean completely; that means no Imp, no Pinky, no Cacodemon, no Baron of Hell, etc. Instead, you would be fighting, I do not know, UAC troopers and robots, angelic warriors and divine artificial constructs, but no demons - of hellish origin or in name only.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Rudolph

[Kinsie]

You can contact me via PM to discuss my consulting fees.

 

On 4/17/2022 at 7:31 AM, Rudolph said:

@Megalyth Not quite sure. I remember reading somewhere that Quake II was originally going to be an original IP, but then Id Software found themselves unable to use the title they had in mind due to it being already trademarked, so they ultimately settled for Quake II in the end.

 

I am sure someone more knowledgeable about the topic could confirm this or correct me there.

 

1 hour ago, QuaketallicA said:

I hadn't heard the trademark story before, but I had heard something similar that they couldn't get a name for it, so they just settled on Quake II, even though it was intended to be a different game. 

My understanding is that they couldn't think of a name that didn't suck ass, so they stuck with their working title.

 

Seriously, the best name they could think up was "WOR". WOR. Ponder this.

[Rudolph]

@Kinsie Does that mean you would personally be fine with a Doom game that did not involve Hell nor Demons?

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Rudolph said:

Does that mean you would personally be fine with a Doom game that did not involve Hell nor Demons?

That makes about as much sense as a Wolfenstein game that did not involve Nazis.

 

Or an X-Com game that did not involve aliens. A Terminator game that did not involve robots. A Resident Evil game that did not involve zombies. A Tetris game that did not involve falling blocks.

[Martin Howe]

Technically it should be easy enough for the DOOM IWADs; just create a mod replacing demons with human enemies of similar capabilities; in fact, I'm surprised nobody has done this before. Or did they and I missed it?

[kwc]

 

11 minutes ago, Martin Howe said:

Technically it should be easy enough for the DOOM IWADs; just create a mod replacing demons with human enemies of similar capabilities; in fact, I'm surprised nobody has done this before. Or did they and I missed it?

Sure did ;)

[sandwedge]

27 minutes ago, Gez said:

That makes about as much sense as a Wolfenstein game that did not involve Nazis.

 

Or an X-Com game that did not involve aliens. A Terminator game that did not involve robots. A Resident Evil game that did not involve zombies. A Tetris game that did not involve falling blocks.

 

Excuse me but the enemies in resident evil aren't zombies, they're parasites ok.

 

Lol I'm just kidding but you can fudge stuff a bit like that, as long as they are essentially the same thing.  You could have them be not-quite demons but still have them pretty much be demons.  Don't think that's what the OP meant though.  I agree with people saying it's the essence of the IP so just make something else if you want something different.