Strifeguy sprite/illustration differences and possible dev intentions

Originally made this as a discussion page on the Stirfeguy page of the Doom Wiki, but figured it'd make an interesting forum thread.

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Given the differences between Macil's ingame sprite vs. his profile pic, it reminded me that the player sprite looks even more different than his illustrated counterpart. This is probably a result of poor communication and/or different work timelines between the artists, but I wonder if Strifeguy himself is still supposed to look anything like a Front soldier in the campaign mode.

I say this because you never see your sprite when in first person, you only see it in multiplayer. It would make sense to have a generic soldier as a deathmatch pawn. Strifeguy was a wandering merc before joining the Front and he never was shown to have been given a uniform. The Order mooks also tend to not recognize him as a Front soldier in the "peaceful" and stealth sections and just take him for a normal civvie. I think they know what a Front uniform looks like so there's a good chance he's not wearing one. Of course, he still wears Front gloves in first person no matter what, but I doubt they wanted to make a whole different set just for deathmatch and they probably didn't concern themselves too much about it. Besides which, the gloves are probably less immediately recognizable to the acolytes than the whole brown outfit + helmet.

Thoughts?

Sodaholic said:

I wonder if Strifeguy himself is still supposed to look anything like a Front soldier in the campaign mode.

I say this because you never see your sprite when in first person, you only see it in multiplayer. It would make sense to have a generic soldier as a deathmatch pawn. [...] I doubt they wanted to make a whole different set just for deathmatch and they probably didn't concern themselves too much about it.

I agree, that might be the cause. They needed an universal player sprite that looked good (in DM), and they weren't concerned about making game-mode-specific or situation-specific player skins. That would also be hard to do in this engine, and so it's well possible that they (Strife creators) didn't realistically consider it at all. After all, the player doesn't see himself in the SP campaign, so it was entirely acceptable for them.

According to the cinematics, this is what Strifeguy looks like.
I love the art in that game, by the way. Man, maybe it's time to play it again... I've got a soft spot for it.

Well look at Doom 2 and Doomguy, even though Doomguy appears to be wearing a slightly different uniform without a helmet in the titlescreen he still has the same space marine uniform sprites in game as he did in Doom 1.

Avoozl said:

Well look at Doom 2 and Doomguy, even though Doomguy appears to be wearing a slightly different uniform without a helmet in the titlescreen he still has the same space marine uniform sprites in game as he did in Doom 1.

The guy from Doom 2 TITLEPIC might not be our Doomguy, but another Earth defending soldier just before he's slain by a cyberdemon.

UAC probably likes to make multiple uniforms or something..but when in game Doom Guy picks his favorite outfit...I dunno.

It is a bit eh, that in game and cover art can look different to player sprites. On the PS1 cover he looks even more different.

I consider it just alternate reality Doom Guys...they are all him, go through the same adventure, but look different. Considering we never play the game exactly the same way..kill monsters in different orders, take different routes, pick up things in different orders and so on, I like to add to the science fiction nature of the game and bill it down to alternate universes being experienced every time we load up the game and see some Doom art. And yes even within the same game, that title pic Doom Guy is a different reality to the one we play as.....

I just assumed it was a normal Earth soldier uniform as it's likely that the UAC have a different uniform for its Space Marines than for its Earth Defense Forces assuming the UAC also owns them, but then again Doomguy was no longer in the army according to certain manual information I recall and it's likely he wouldn't have had the time to get changed as soon as he reaches Earth through the teleport.

I just assumed id software told Gerald Brom to use the first cover as a reference and to make it look good. Cover art rarely represented the game 100% in those days. Even Don Ivan Punchatz's marine took liberties from the game sprite, which, too, took huge liberties from Adrien's original sketch.

Of course the theories posted are much more practical.