What makes classic DOOM scary?

[Chud]

Cool question. The game generally doesn't ooze traditional fear factor but it has its moments. For me, maybe it's not fear as much as just stress or tension. For example, especially on a particular tough map, I know there's going to be traps at some points like picking up keys, and its probably going to be brutal. It's a weird feeling of not wanting to trigger the trap and stay in my state of safety even though you literally can not progress any further without it. Sometimes when I know what's coming, I'll find myself just wandering around before hyping myself up and getting it done. But the feeling before feels akin to fear. Might be a minority with this experience though, because I know lots of people just save game and send it without a second thought. 

[TheSlipgateStudios]

If you played it when you were under 10 years old like me, you would know why the game would be scary. The satanic imagery that makes you uneased, the traps that open up when you pick up a weapon, a secret or a key, the lights fading out and you have to fight monsters in the darkness, or seeing big number of enemies in some slaughter Doom 2 maps. But being an adult, all these things mentioned are trivial. 

[Lucius Wooding]

People straight up don't play games the same way as they did back when Doom came out. Now it's much more likely you'll have an idea of strategies and engine quirks that make every monster type easier to deal with, as well as the ability to see footage of later parts of the game. You wouldn't know what to expect back in the day and generally the Doom community in 1993 meant your family members and maybe friends at your school. You wouldn't have the type of exposure to the content you have now. You can now easily see how good players play the game, even if you might not know the maps you're playing you'd be doing things with a totally different and more effective approach than a typical 1993 player. Plus, Doom established a lot of norms in the FPS genre that every game copied and now people take for granted. A lot of players back then were experiencing first person games for the first time and even the most casual FPS players today would find picking up the gameplay a ton easier than someone who had never played its like before. It meant that the monsters in the IWADs which we now consider a 2/10 in terms of difficulty would be much more of a threat.

 

On top of that, the visuals and gameplay aged well but it doesn't have the same credibility as a horror game anymore compared to what people expect from modern titles. It doesn't necessarily mean realism is the only way to create a good horror experience, but in 1993 people considered Doom to be very "realistic" due to the first person style. It was one of the best looking gaming experiences of the day, outside of the arcade or games like Myst which had various limitations. Now it would be considered to have cartoony graphics but that's all from a perspective of hindsight. Senators wanted that shit banned back in the day.

 

Finally, there are elements of the experience besides graphics that can create horror or unease; the fear of death or generally of the monsters themselves. One of my best friends pointed out that the Wolfenstein levels of Doom 2 freaked him out as a kid when he stumbled into them because they were so unfamiliar and hidden. And then there's the fact that people used to have imaginations back in the day.

[Thelokk]

Wood. In Hell.

 

Think about it. 

[knifeworld]

1 hour ago, Lucius Wooding said:

snipp

Have to echo this, levels these days typically only become scary if they do something interesting and subvert your expectations of what the level is going to be like and manage to pull off a daunting or disturbing atmosphere.
Imo one thing that will always be scary if used well is the monster types and their sounds, "used well" being the key part, archvile laughing and cybers walking somewhere really close to you won't be quite as scary if you have tons of health and a bfg. Although lack of room to move will increase the fear factor even in that situation.

[Casketkrusher]

PS1 Doom, basically makes it pretty dark. Eerie soundtrack. N64 has the same vibe, only the sprites of the demons, I'm not sure about that looks kinda wacky imo.

[TuomasGaming]

I never really thought it was that scary.