I Think Doom's Edge Went the Wrong Way

[mrthejoshmon]

I think classic Doom is edgy in a great way.
 

I think New Doom is edgy in a bad way.

 

What the fuck do I mean by this? Let me explain:

Older entries in the Doom series, all the way up to and including Doom 3/ROE were edgy. The game series at this point is what I would describe more as pulp sci-fi action horror.
You had a brave macho lone survivor space marine fighting off horrors beyond mortal comprehension caused by ill explained sci-fi nonsense, portals opened to literal hell filled with blood hungry malicious terrors and unholy fusions of tech and flesh hellbent on tearing everyone and everything to pieces, everywhere you went there was the aftermath of violence and the horrors that committed it. Classic Doom was terrifying, eerie, gory and just slightly over the top in the right places, it can be best compared to Aliens and Predator.

 

But classic Doom also kept itself somewhat restrained, whilst the violence was indeed ultra the crux of it all was that despite the fact you just tore a shaved muscle gorilla a new arsehole with a chainsaw, you were still just a soldier. There is something infinitely appealing to me about mortal men fighting against not only impossible odds but also demented horrors, dealing with gruesome sights that no normal man should see and committing acts of violence that would traumatise any normal person.

 

It's visceral, nasty, yet just ever so slightly grounded. The tone is grim, it is dark and this is further and wonderfully realised in the latter console ports and both third entries in the series (those being Doom 64 and 3, respectively). I find Doom so much more compelling as a gritty, grimy, pulpy horror adjacent affair where at no point are you the scariest thing in the room, the demons are twisted creatures or towering behemoths, forever stronger and more sadistic than you will ever be.

 

One of my favourite demons will forever be Doom 3 ROE's Bruiser, a horrific fusion of tech and muscle that has one of the most unnerving designs in the series which absolutely bounds towards you, full of anger and hate with equally imposing sounds to match, horrific and cool in all the best ways.

 

In comparison, I feel such a disconnect on why I dislike Doom 2016/Eternal's overall vibe (less so in Doom 2016 mind you). Newer Doom titles put the player in the shoes of the threat, you are malice, you are destruction, you are the overwhelming force of violence and terror and it just isn't as appealing to be the thing that is feared, you ARE the Bruiser.

 

They're fine games but the newer titles do not restrain themselves, whilst there was some "ludonarrative dissonance" with Classic Doom's horror themes yet the gameplay itself being so fast paced the horror was still a factor, in Doom Eternal especially the tone absolutely shifts, the sci-fi/gothic/eldritch horror of the originals is played more for a badass "metal as fuck" kind of effect as you charge around utterly crushing any and all opposition, any horror that was possible takes a back seat to utter carnage.

 

It's a "look how cool this is" approach, I'd go so far as to compare it to something like a comic book superhero kind of approach, you are no longer the last marine fighting horrors but instead the horror tearing down lesser terrors, the gory visuals having less of an impact from "this could be my fate" to "I could make a bigger mess" as an equal amount of carnage is summoned from basic combat, the cruelty of the demons shifts from an imposing force of malice to a comical evil villain who our new superman "must fight for righteousness and hated" instead of "desperately struggle against to save his species". The wall of screaming faces stops being a well of tortured human souls caused by monsters to a fucking metal album cover.

The biggest offender for me is the amount of time the games spend hyping you up to be some turbo violent ultra murder machine (resulting in some of the hardest edgy cringe I have endured since Jeff the Killer), it just isn't appealing in the slightest to me, it comes across as a goofy edgy power fantasy in a world I had established as an edgy grim dark universe and is just so unfitting.

 

I've probably not said everything I want in here and it probably doesn't make sense but it is long enough, the main point I'm saying is that I wish Doom went with a more subtle approach and embraced its more horrifying elements, the fast gameplay can work (as it did in the originals). There's nothing wrong with liking the newer titles and I will stand by the fact that 2016 is one of the best playing games in recent memory but all in all the tone and vibe is just no longer for me.

 

TL;DR: I haven't aged passed 13

Edited February 15, 2024 by mrthejoshmon

[Arrowhead]

5 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I think classic Doom is edgy in a great way.
 

I think New Doom is edgy in a bad way...

 

In comparison, I feel such a disconnect on why I dislike Doom 2016/Eternal's overall vibe (less so in Doom 2016 mind you). Newer Doom titles put the player in the shoes of the threat, you are malice, you are destruction, you are the overwhelming force of violence and terror and it just isn't as appealing to be the thing that is feared, you ARE the Bruiser.

I totally agree w/ the above statement, continuing on w/ the comic book hero thing - this is the same reason why I dislike Superman as a hero.

 

Yeah, there's nothing intimidating or imposing, if you are the imposing intimidating thing.

 

I've always felt like the New Doom games portrayed the enemies as too weak - I never felt threatened, if that makes sense. Same w/ the majority of Superman's foes.

 

I just dislike games where you're the badass - I prefer my opposition to be 'badass'. If that makes sense.

 

But yeah, could not agree more - and this is probably why I could never get too immersed in Doom post D3:RoE...

[mrthejoshmon]

15 minutes ago, Arrowhead said:

I totally agree w/ the above statement, continuing on w/ the comic book hero thing - this is the same reason why I dislike Superman as a hero.

 

Yeah, there's nothing intimidating or imposing, if you are the imposing intimidating thing.

 

I've always felt like the New Doom games portrayed the enemies as too weak - I never felt threatened, if that makes sense. Same w/ the majority of Superman's foes.

 

I just dislike games where you're the badass - I prefer my opposition to be 'badass'. If that makes sense.

 

But yeah, could not agree more - and this is probably why I could never get too immersed in Doom post D3:RoE...

Yeah, that's the main problem I have.

Don't get me wrong, they're fine games to play, but I just can't get too into the whole vibe and power fantasy thing.

 

I can understand the appeal of it, it just really isn't what I'm about, I do not gel with it at all and have always preferred to be on the receiving end of the stick.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

Doom Eternal spends so much time and effort telling the player that they're the ultimate badass that they forgot to make the actual protagonist a badass, so they just tell you with whatever time and effort is left that he's a badass even though as far as I can tell he's a cringeworthy troglodyte barely capable of speaking a full sentence. It doesn't work, because unlike Doomguy the Doom Slayer is not doing a self-insert thing with the player.  You might be able to say "well, I'm a badass so Doom Slayer is a badass too" but it doesn't work because (again) unlike Doomguy the Doom Slayer is not a blank slate for the player to project their narcissistic fantasies unto.

 

I find the Doom Slayer character obnoxious in the same way that I think Deadpool is obnoxious: "haha wow look I have no subtlety lol isn't that like so cool and badass", constantly holding the player's hand so to ensure that they know they're the ultimate badass.

 

It's stuff that I imagine 13 year-olds getting off to.

[ChaseC7527]

yeah i kinda loved the fact that you were just a dude in the deepest most twisted pits of hell beating and tearing your way out.

[ChaseC7527]

but rly tho, y'all just run out of shit to talk about?

[OliveTree]

I've articulated a similar thought before, that Doom makes the player feel badass because the threat they're facing is genuinely a very sinister and intimidating threat, and yet they overcome it anyway.

Edited February 15, 2024 by OliveTree

[Maximum Matt]

U2 Doom.  Someone get on that.

Actually, don't

[mrthejoshmon]

6 hours ago, ChaseC7527 said:

but rly tho, y'all just run out of shit to talk about?

The irony of declaring the lack of interesting discussion whilst saying nothing of interest.

 

If nothing interesting is being discussed, then perhaps go and start an interesting topic rather than lament the absence of it?

Edited February 15, 2024 by mrthejoshmon

[ChaseC7527]

2 hours ago, mrthejoshmon said:

The irony of declaring the lack of interesting discussion whilst saying nothing of interest.

 

If nothing interesting is being discussed, then perhaps go and start an interesting topic rather than lament the absence of it?

damn you didnt have to get all edgar allan poe on my ass

[heliumlamb]

bigups to insomnia here's some text for interpretation, it could be interpreted as a "yap" from a bozo and/or doofus but it is text nonetheless - less about aesthetic edge and more about vibration/tone/resonance but edges do vibrate too. (this is/can be about Doom)

 

the oldhead idsoft singleplayer first person exploration games (iam only accounting for base content for this juncture) that also happen to feature projectile and/or hitscan expulsion in a predominant mechanical role (all but one of them from 91-05 [no shade to those who like That One {it's a sequel}]) are experiences i tend to interpret as "powerlessness fantasies". desolate realms of death and disorientation. when stripped of the amphetaSpeed guitar aesthetic [not a dig at the style but whaddya think "motorhead" means] The Dooms've still got an "edge". the powerlessness is primarily aided by environment-first design with exploration as a guiding principle, and the encounters the player... encounters * are * part of the environment, an environment that asks 2 things of the player - explore and survive, the priority of which is a variable perpetually in flux. disorientation within an environment that is as much of an adversarial foe as the (simulatated) entities that reside within isn't the primary tenement of this "powerlessness fantasy" that boggles around my (what some might presume to be hollow) skull any time im in the video's game zone with the Dooms, but that concept has been lingering 'round my brain for quite some time. doom in particular is something i always recognize, regardless of any particular map's approach or scale, as a dungeon stg - as much gradius as there is wizardry (and ad&d). maybe i just tend to gravitate towards Games of video that culminate in overcoming those initial feelings of powerlessness through environmental and mechanical exploration, at my own pace, on as much of my own terms as the rapid autonomously crunched numbers will allow me to.

 

(!!!SUBJECTIVITY WARNING) when i tried to play the newdooms recently (revisiting '16 and refunding turnal), i got the same taste in my synapses as i get from Serious Devil May Vanquish Ultrapainkiller: it's like painkillers, the edge is dulled (or perhaps resharpened to an angle i do not like to use) but my adversaries still keep coming for me regardless of the room/area i'm in, i wish they could be ignored (sometimes they can). the positive feelings i get from it are... fine, slightly liberating at first but do not last beyond the current day. to get "the most out of it" carries the potential to drive me to an all consuming compulsion of a begrudged "ugh fine maybe i'll try this one more". it's not for me, at least for most of the time. but when i (perhaps mistakenly) convince myself that it is for me, after a while, sooner than i expect, i no longer feel like me, rounded down to only my flaws. frustration of the "i'm not mad, i'm just disappointed" sort at my own self and own performance. my terms? now under external control. hedonia wanes. desperately reaching for anything to put the edge back on. but not desperate enough to collect funko pops. (SUBJECTIVITY WANING!!!)

acting out of hedonism??? *spits* goodbye logic!!!!

gamed videos? absolutely a hedonistic pursuit, constructed from logic itself, but hedonistic nonetheless. they darn sure cool as heck though, and despite being a relatively young medium it's crazy how diverse they became so quickly. so many different vibes for so many different humans. perhaps the experiences ive had with the powerlessness reality of this hell on earth are accompanied best by occasionally working my way through one of hundreds of those silly (often) old "powerlessness fantasy", of which those earlier dooms are 4*∞ of them, yeah tastes and life experiences differ despite having "life" itself, neurons and various sensory inputs in common. humanity is shared amongst humans. no matter how powerless i feel, there will always be that balancing act of exploration and survival. imma survive. bet.

Edited February 15, 2024 by heliumlamb

[PsychEyeball]

I believe the horror vibe of Doom worked better back in the time where no one really knew how to fight efficiently and where Suburbs/Refueling Base was somehow the most brutal map of all Doom-dom. Nowadays, the horror factor barely work at all because most WADs and most gameplay nowadays are done under the principle that while a simple peon, you still are a single guy that single-handedly kills over thousands of demons by their own hand. And believe it or not, this alone will get you under heavy scrutiny from anyone who hears about what happened. You will become the Doom Slayer and I do believe the newer games do a good job of rationalizing what would happen if such a feat was heard from mere humans.

 

I still hate this particular scientist's logs because they comes off less as admiration than her elevating you to god status. To me, it's just really cringeworthy writing. But fuck it, you went to hell and back, you likely killed millions of demons and still got to live to tell the tale.

 

re: Doom 3's attempt at horror

Sorry, not buying Doom 3 as a horror game. It has some horror elements, but the sum of its parts still remain too cheesy and most of the fighting is very one-dimensional. Plus a horror game can't use the same tricks throughout all its running time and expect the player to be scared each time. First time I saw a monster closet in Doom 3, I got spooked badly. After that, every time the trick was used just made me more and more annoyed. The overall body count feels a bit less like you're trapped in an arcade game, but you still kill way too many demons by your own hands.

Edited February 15, 2024 by PsychEyeball
added some doom 3 thoughts

[Mr. Freeze]

Doom 3's Hell is the best Hell in the entire series, and single-handedly made Doom 3 a horror game. I wish the newer games could come close to that Hell again.

 

Doom Eternal is an evolution of the older games, and also an evolution of Doomguy. He -and the player by extension- are not going to be the same scared marine wandering the dark halls of a refueling base or exploring a destroyed downtown. He's been killing demons for untold years, and we've been playing Doom for nearly thirty. The same old tactics don't work anymore on him or us, and now we are both the scourge of Hell. Doomguy isn't a self-insert anymore? My brother in Christ, he now mirrors us more than ever. 

[bioshockfan90]

See, it's weird because I always saw Classic Doom as arcadey and carefree. id Software, at least from what I've read around, was focused on delivering a "beefed up Wolf3D for beefier PCs". I don't doubt the horror/edgy elements were intentional (see: NIN in E4M1, the Daisy screen, the intermission text) and for sure the dynamic lighting as a step up from Wolf3D was meant to invoke fear. There's a whole other interesting discussion that could be had piggybacking off of this in the form of those that grew up/played Doom upon launch in the 90s before video games had more power to them, versus those younger people (such as myself) that grew up with Doom in an era of no shortage of WADs to play, both in gameplay and in custom maps, in a time when the Doom community had been steered in a gameplay-focused direction thanks in part to some of the more influental PWADs of the era as opposed to environment or vibe. Not to say those types of WADs didn't exist back then, Look at Unloved, look at Aliens TC, I'm sure there's dozens of other examples out there, but for me personally I grew up with Scythe, Hell Revealed, and Alien Vendetta. It was already gameplay-centric for me. Maybe that's me as a person, maybe that's where I was at mentally at the time, but I do think this could lead to some interesting discourse.

 

I think part of it is, Doom is known more today by its "mods" first, vanilla games second. To the modern digital gaming audience anyway. Back in the 90s, WADs were in their infancy and from what I can gather the best shot you had at playing PWADs was either to have a good connection, or have purchased one of those shovelware CDs. So it was still known as "Doom" primarily. 

 

Actually, as I spend more time thinking about this, not just the community but also the sheer size and amount of media out there is on PWADs out there play a role too. Because Quake has an active mapping scene, but I still see Quake as a very environmental game. But then again, People don't often think of Quake maps outside of official addons. It's always either the deathmatch or the vanilla game. Once again, speaking from a broad demographic here.

 

Doom 3 I won't comment on, I've barely played it. Agree with 2016 and Eternal trying too hard to be badass. Like you said, fine games. But not the direction it should've gone in. I had dreams about 2016 leading up to its launch and in my dreams I had a very different vision of what the game was gonna end up like. Needless to say on launch day I was a bit caught off-guard. 2016 is fine, Eternal is fine, my personal gripes with them are due to me liking Classic Doom out of preference. On their own as video games to be consumed by the masses, they do their job.

 

Sorry if that sounded disconnected or stream of conscious-y. Still waking up.

Edited February 15, 2024 by bioshockfan90
typo

[Amaruψ]

Funny enough, it's the original games that I've actually found to be tonally darker without looking quite edgy. The new ones look rather goofy and feel like a parody of itself. The plot and everything that the newer games seem to have might fit more into a Hexen or a Heretic game more than a Doom game.

[Astar]

DOOM 2016 and Doom Eternal allowed kids all over the world to roleplay a Doomslayer and imagine how they (as a Doomslayer, of course) kill furries and women :3

[Pechudin]

30 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Doom 3's Hell is the best Hell in the entire series, and single-handedly made Doom 3 a horror game. I wish the newer games could come close to that Hell again.

 

Doom Eternal is an evolution of the older games, and also an evolution of Doomguy. He -and the player by extension- are not going to be the same scared marine wandering the dark halls of a refueling base or exploring a destroyed downtown. He's been killing demons for untold years, and we've been playing Doom for nearly thirty. The same old tactics don't work anymore on him or us, and now we are both the scourge of Hell. Doomguy isn't a self-insert anymore? My brother in Christ, he now mirrors us more than ever. 

 

Interesting point. It makes sense, we no longer see the demons as something unknown, horrible, we see them as mechanics, predictable, exploitable.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Pechudin

[Amaruψ]

43 minutes ago, Mr. Freeze said:

Doom Eternal is an evolution of the older games, and also an evolution of Doomguy. He -and the player by extension- are not going to be the same scared marine wandering the dark halls of a refueling base or exploring a destroyed downtown. He's been killing demons for untold years, and we've been playing Doom for nearly thirty. 

 

I think Heretic II told this sort of a story for Corvus far better than Doom does. Corvus is experienced but still fears death, whereas Doom is nothing short of a power fantasy trip through and through.

[Helm]

here's a different vantage for understanding this: in 1992 what an american marine was in the public imagination was different than the current zeitgeist re: american military forces. You were closer to Rambo 1 and Deer Hunter in that era. Back in 1992 doomguy was some slacker who got thrown in the brig for disobeying unconscientious higher command, the people that wrote doomguy were listening to Megadeth and scratching pentagrams on their lunchbox. America was coming out of the Gulf war and starting to stop into Bosnian Croatian business, but they didn't have an active invasion of Kosovo, Iraq or Afghanistan going yet. At the time the relationship of countercultural figures to american armed forces like some texan teenagers had would have been grounded in very different movies, books, comics, games, presenting the american military prowess in a very different way as well. 

Few decades of american foreign policy later mean that if you're gonna make a game about an american special forces marine (even all sci-fi'ed up, a space marine is a marine is a marine is a marine), you're going to go a completely different way. If there's one thing we have learned from escalating american military industrial complex propaganda, be it war movies, a Call of Duty or any other piece of agitprop, is that the american military believes it has, at this point, divine right. Whoever the bad guys are will get shot up by the american good guys, who are basically fighting against the forces of global corruption to keep americans safe in perpetuity, right? The world has REALLY changed since 1992, and doomguy represents the culminating american fantasy of our age, that if you are the good guys then it is absolutely not just ok but warranted (by god, fate, destiny, whatever you write it as, it is divine right) to use lethal force and why not, even means of genocide if it means defeating evil.

This is why your modern doomguy is some sort of demonshred god and not just a shit out of luck 90s slacker caught between the rock of insubordination and the very hard place of an impending event horizon. The unassuming quality of 1992 doomguy is very key. In his little portrait he seems curious, has almost a bit of a smile, he's keen to notice stuff... That is not who is underneath the 'doomslayer' helmet, right?

[mrthejoshmon]

There's absolutely no denying that the way the story and character of the protagonist went with the series makes sense.

 

The Doomslayer is what I imagine centuries of endless combat would do to someone, it makes sense.

 

The main way the tone of say something like Doom 3 could be achieved is if just like Doom 3, a soft/hard reset or change of perspective was used. Even withthat said however, Eternal could still have had some of the grimmer edge to it, a lot of issues I have with Eternal is the strange way it acts goofy as shit and just plays it with a straight face.

 

You telling me the that the traumatised war machine, that only understands battle and destruction, has a flying man cave called "the Fortress of Doom", in which he collects argent powered guitars and funco pops? Yet this is also the no words badass who will just tear a spine from a monster's ass skull first? Also the flashback with "Rip and Tear" absolutely made me wince, it is both simultaneously trying ever so hard to be badass yet also so God damn silly I just cannot decide which lane it is picking. I think it'd be a lot cooler if Doom Slayer just travelled around is some run of the mill sparsely decorated ship with not much else than a weapons bay and war trophies (like mounted heads or something), you know real psychopath undecorated apartment shit.

 

There's a lot of the demons who are played for slapstick too, the thing I noticed between 2016 and Eternal is that the glory kills are fierce in 2016, nasty, violent and visceral through and through. Demons in 2016 just get fucken murdered, they die hard deaths, I especially remember the behind imp execution where it looks up at you and you just stomp it's head off, that's hardcore. You headshot something and the fucker pastes all over with a equally squishy meat sound. When Slayer kills in 2016, he is killing the demon.

 

Eternal has a considerable amount of slapstick comedy juxtaposed against the violence, for example the cacodemon will just comically gulp grenades down or the one glory kill where you bump a possessed's head into their chest (complete with silly face, noise and stumble). You headshot something in that game with an audible cartoon pop. When Salyer is killing in Eternal, they are thinking of the most over the top way to do it, they're ripping the head off AND shitting in the neck.

 

I suppose what I'm saying is that the violence just being straight up violence in 2016 is what made it cool and edgy. The violence in Eternal is trying to be cool and flashy which ultimately comes across as trying to edgy over actually being edgy.

 

Maybe the problem I have is just Eternal's weird ass characterisation. I think if it played out deadpan serious with no fucking around with the whole "You are literally God, people worship you, you're so badass" or "check out your Vinyl and Funko Pop collection in your space man cave" then I think I'd get along with it more.

Edited February 15, 2024 by mrthejoshmon

[Kwisior]

Wait, Classic Doom is supposed to be scary?!

[JBerg]

45 minutes ago, Kwisior said:

Wait, Classic Doom is supposed to be scary?!

It sort of was on release

[yakfak]

it's scary compared to everything else you had at the time, only comparable to the harsher dungeon crawlers with ambient or no music imo

Doom puts you right in the action in first person, it's DARK especially if you don't know to press F11 and you can hear the zombies moaning. plus the newer you are to the game, the more limited your options feel which translates to an I'm-inevitably-going-to-lose feeling and makes you hesitate in front of each door

 

and also the ambition of the game is sort of awesomely scary

 

it's not silent hill scary of course but that's not the intent. and if you aren't a doom god you'll still find maps which invoke in you a sense of about-to-lose, and if you react to that with frustration at balance or whatever instead of enjoying the Doom doominess then that's on you

[Andrea Rovenski]

I just pretend corporate-doom doesnt exist, because it's more fun to play the real games this way :) agree on doom 3 being a great entry with rebooting the themes in a modern (at the time) way that was still fun, innovative, and deeply rooted in the series starts. Corporate-doom feels like it was designed by a youtube commenter who just saw brutal doom for the first time and the whole vibe and narrative is cringey in the bad way. Doom is scary as shit, even after playing it for my entire life, I still find levels that give me a good glimpse of the creep-factor I experienced as a kid. The new "games" could never come close. The bare-bones themes of the original games are what makes them so fun to me. No overexplanations, no unskippable cutscenes, no forced "memes", just "hey we saw some cool movies and put em in a blender with a great game, here ya go".

[bioshockfan90]

3 minutes ago, Andrea Rovenski said:

I just pretend corporate-doom doesnt exist, because it's more fun to play the real games this way :) agree on doom 3 being a great entry with rebooting the themes in a modern (at the time) way that was still fun, innovative, and deeply rooted in the series starts. Corporate-doom feels like it was designed by a youtube commenter who just saw brutal doom for the first time and the whole vibe and narrative is cringey in the bad way. Doom is scary as shit, even after playing it for my entire life, I still find levels that give me a good glimpse of the creep-factor I experienced as a kid. The new "games" could never come close. The bare-bones themes of the original games are what makes them so fun to me. No overexplanations, no unskippable cutscenes, no forced "memes", just "hey we saw some cool movies and put em in a blender with a great game, here ya go".

I was talking with a friend on Discord about this thread and they jokingly said nu-Doom was inspired by Brutal Doom.

 

Has Hugo Martin or anyone in modern id's camp admitted to anything like this? LOL

[Gifty]

I thought people were angry that Doom Eternal was too silly? The nu-dooms deflate their self-seriousness pretty frequently with dumb humor, I've found. The badass cool guy tropes have changed with the times from Ash Williams to something more Richard B. Riddick, but I don't think you're meant to take it very seriously in the OG game or the new ones.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Gifty

[Ravendesk]

58 minutes ago, JBerg said:

It sort of was on release

Was it really though? I first played it in late 90s as a kid and I don't remember being scared by it at all. Intimidated, yes, sure, but that's just due to age and not being able to play fps well. I find it weird that so many people call it being scary on release really. Blood or even quake - yeah, sure, those were much scarier, but Doom always felt upbeat and action-focused to me. There are barely any horror elements, some gore sprites, a few dark rooms, and that's it. Doom 2 even more so as it went into experimental, weird and goofy direction instead.

 

Of course experiences may vary, especially so at young age, but I don't think classic doom being scary on release is a universal truth. I don't remember anything indicating that my older relatives considered it scary at the time either.

 

In that sense doom 2016 and eternal feel very true to classic doom. It definitely should have been more tongue-in-cheeck with its over the top goofiness, but thats it (game actively punishing you for actually watching cutscenes is kinda funny even). Otherwise it's still one guy easily dispatching tons of monsters and not breaking a sweat as a core gameplay.

Edited February 15, 2024 by Ravendesk

[Liberation]

The original games are (still) slightly more relatable to the player, since you are just a marine, a normal person in a bit of a unfortunate position. It adds a little to that roleplaying element if you so choose to do that, maybe not such a thing these days after 30 years, but I did that when I was a nipper.

Nu doom, nah you are the Doomslayer and all that bollocks, it's a roller-coaster of an extremely violent marvel film, with you as the star, the super hero.

 

It doesn't really work for me, DE was really bad in that regard.   

[NecrumWarrior]

I thought Doom 2016 did really well with the tone personally. Very violent and very moody. Your just some really angry guy who was woken up and doesn't want to listen, you just want to kill demons. To me this is highly relatable to the player who also just wants to kill demons so it works. In Doom Eternal, while I enjoy it, I think they leaned too heavily into the silly elements of 2016 and start having the Slayer sort of take things seriously which is weird. It's more like a comic book. I think 2016 did an excellent job of hybridizing elements of all previous Doom games into something great. 

[JackDBS]

ngl when i got Doom 2016, i played it for an hour and said "hmm i wanna play some Doom II rn" and so i spent 10000 hours playing megawads and here i am

 

doom 2016 is pretty mid id say

Edited February 15, 2024 by JackDBS