Will Doom be scary?

Because the PSX and N64 Doom ports are, in my opinion, the scariest entries in the series, and even Doom 3 has some frightening moments that were executed well. Neo-Doom is looking badass, but not very horrific. Should it be? I'd like to have a few pants-shittingly tense moments.

It would be nice if a Doom game could capture the horror/comedy balance that Evil Dead 2 and similar Sam Raimi movies have. After all, the original games still had some silliness in them, which I know at least John Romero acknowledges.

I'm not a big fan of a strictly scary Doom but I will confess Doom 3 managed to generally scare me a couple of times until the game ran out of monsters to introduce. Then it was just teleports and jumpscares.

Horror should be fun. Jumpscares are not, unless they're earned.

I think the first priority is fun, arcadey gameplay, which does not naturally fit with scariness due to the need for the game to boldly acknowledge it is a game instead of a survival simulator. That said, there should still be some room for scary moments. The introduction of newly encountered monsters being one such opportunity and the hologram replaying earlier events also holds promise for some tension for those hoping for that kind of thing.

I dunno, it seemed more like a Sci-Fi game from the gameplay .

What made Doom3 and Doom64 scary? Mainly atmosphere, achieved through ambient sound and lighting. This is something the new Doom could achieve just as good.

Doom3 added additional scariness by making your character slow and relatively vulnarable and giving him just a sufficient ammount of ammo and health to survive, but you weren't able to overwhelm the demons by overabundant firepower. This is something the new Doom probably won't have.

So the new Doom can probably reach the scare level of Doom64, but not the Survival Horror quality of Doom3.

Tetzlaff said:

What made Doom3 and Doom64 scary? Mainly atmosphere, achieved through ambient sound and lighting. This is something the new Doom could achieve just as good.

I Was talking about the E3 Gameplay that didn't show any "Horror" elements (besides the Hellish looking level), but yeah you're right .

The scene were the Doomguy opens the locked door with the ripped-off hand IMO has a certain level of scariness, with gloomy lighting and suspense instead of action.

Edit: Just re-watched the video, I think the majority of the steel plant level has a nice gloomy atmosphere. It could be enhanced if the soundscape would be more creepy instead of that industrial action music.

I felt the introduction to Hell, right up until the distant cacodemons appear, achieved a certain spine-tingling atmosphere that was very effective. I remember a few scenes in the molten map looking similarly tense.

I doubt it will be scary in the sense that Doom3 was. To me that is probably a good thing. The constantly oppressive atmosphere could get a little depressing at times.

Hopefully the new Doom uses some sort of horror atmosphere and reintroduces some demonic/messed up imagery. The only part in the e3 demo that seemed to barely acheive this to me was the blood hall with lit pentagram that gets brushed over quickly. Its wishful thinking but Im hoping they were trying to play the reveal crowd safe by not showing over the top stuff.

The hell map was obviously trying to go for horror atmosphere but it didnt quite get there. Maybe it was too well lit but the blood ground is a good step there.

kelliegator said:

Horror should be fun. Jumpscares are not, unless they're earned.

A good jumpscare is the pay-off, it has to be unexpected and built up after a lot of tension. If done well, it can be used to release the tension because then you're not so scared anymore. Games that overly rely on them without any tension to build up towards it are never scary.

One thing Doom 3 did very right was its representation of demons as insanely evil to the point of grostequely mocking basic human qualities, instincts, and emotions. Demon babies, for one thing. Insane tortured laughing and crazy screams. Then you have the reversed Lord's Prayer, the Soul Cube quoting scripture, low distorted "Ave Maria" and "Alleluia" chants in the background, and guys babbling in Aramaic. I'd love for some of that style of ambience to be going on in the backdrop while you're sawing monsters in half, particularly in the more quiet parts of the game.

The sequence where you gotta rip the guy's arm off did have a bit of that quality to it, with low spooky sounding music, and that gives me hope that it won't be entirely excluded.

Yeah, I'm really hoping that some of the puzzles will actually be part of the horror element. Doom 3 was actually very atmospheric in this regard and I don't want them to ignore than for neo-Doom.

I'm convinced there will be eerie moments while Horror possibly sticking to the beginning of the game and possibly a dedicated level later on.

The graphics, engine and aesthetics in addition to some of the better qualities in Doom 3 basically encourages Doom 4 to take advantage of it. I'm pretty sure it will have much less horror moments in turn for old school action moments which should suit the preference of most Doomers.

That Spectre In the Hell level or the Pinky In general would be terrifying In the game. I wouldn't mind some slow moments with those mutated zombie things, or a whole level dedicated to horror.

I will admit, I was kinda tense at the beginning of the Hell demo, It seemed to give me that PSXDOOM/DOOM 64 vibe.

PS1 FTW

Tritnew said:

That Spectre In the Hell level or the Pinky In general would be terrifying In the game. I wouldn't mind some slow moments with those mutated zombie things, or a whole level dedicated to horror.

I will admit, I was kinda tense at the beginning of the Hell demo, It seemed to give me that PSXDOOM/DOOM 64 vibe.

Absolutely. I'm hoping there will be some really desolate, tense, terrifying moments like we all experienced with those versions of Doom. I really think it'll deliver, while mixing it up with intense action like Classic Doom.

Although they're aiming for a more action oriented game, I'm pretty sure there are going to be moments here and there that will scare you, kind of like the original games.

Doom was never really scary, more than it was creepy. I think the classic Dooms had a creepy atmosphere that made you feel uneasy about the world you were exploring.

Oh c'mon, are we going to get into semantics arguments about the difference between creepy and scary? Definitely, the Classic Dooms had as sense of horror to them, however subtle. There are a great deal many moments that, because of the combination of monsters, lighting and architecture, created a genuinely spine tingling reaction. Yeah, the PSX/N64 Dooms upped the ante, but they were just amplifying what was already there. I really hope Doom '16 doesn't forget that.

When it comes to scare factor, I see the Doom series as kinda like the career of a shock rocker: It starts off all scary and terrifies Christian and Parent groups, but further into the career people know what to expect and it isn't scary any more, and it just comes down to the quality of the content.

Hopefully the new Doom will be a good game, even if it's mediocre at worst, but I doubt it'll be scary, with maybe an exception here and there. I hope I'm wrong.

You know, I thought I had replied to this thread.

Here:

GoatLord said:

Will Doom be scary?

Not really, no.

(source)

Pertintent paragraphs -

Marty Stratton said:

Multiplayer: Doom 3 has a scary mood and slow pace. Doom seems completely different. Are you carrying over some of those elements to the game, or is it just fast-paced action?

Marty Stratton: It’s, uh, I would say, big picture, it’s more of the fast-based action and improvisational nature of the game, there’s way more of that than the slower-paced part of Doom 3. The way I’ve described it to people is, when we started about what we wanted this Doom to be, we did a breakdown of all of the Doom games and our feelings about Doom. ‘What did we find awesome about playing Doom? What was most meaningful to us as players?’ Over the course of days, we put all of it up on boards and crossed things out, moved things around and said, at the end, that got to what we felt like people would want out of a new Doom game.

Yes, there are elements of the past in there and there are elements of Doom 3 and there are all kinds of things that make up the DNA of Doom. And not feeling like we were bound to any one thing. What did we feel like was going to be the Doom of now and the future? That’s kind of where we landed. It ended up being very much more we wanted to emphasise the action side of it. We wanted the faster movement, no reloading, or even just focusing on the faster movement, incredible fights with massive amounts of demons and making weapons really good, which is the star of the show. Those thing drive you away from that sense of scary, I’m moving slow… it’s just different. When Doom 3 was made, there are certainly core elements of Doom 1 and Doom 2 that inspired the way that things went with Doom 3.

Tim [Willits] led that project and I worked on that, Robert Duffy who’s our technical director, he worked on Doom 2. We have a lot of people who’ve worked on both games and it’s cool. I think it’s awesome that Doom 3 took those horror elements of Doom and shined a light on those and said, ‘This is our interpretation of the horror of Doom.’ We’re taking the action of Doom and that’s where we’re focusing our energy. Again, I think we got to a place where we felt like taking nothing away from Doom 3, we felt like fans, and us as fans of the franchise and of games, that this was a good time to do this. This was a good time to… it was a good time to reinvigorate these characters and put a new face on a lot of this stuff… put a face, a modern face on these things that are just so iconic and so loved.

There might be a few scary elements in the pot but mostly they've taken the faster, more action focused spin from the original games and run with that as a theme this time.

It looks more like splatter horror than the gloomy horror of Doom 3. With that game, environments felt really dark and oppressive. With Doom 2016 it looks like the levels will be a lot more upbeat, exciting and not so dark ie. pulling out a flashlight just to see anything.

Yeah, I'm just a teeny bit disappointed about that. I mean, look at PSX Doom and Doom 64. Those levels are scary as fuck, even now, because the lighting is so oppressive and the music is surreal. Even Doom 3 has some really scary and creepy areas. The incessant gore in Doom '16 is cool, but that's visceral horror. The horror of the other Dooms I mentioned is one that is more atmospheric, and I really want moments like that in the new one. I got some genuine tingles when I saw the Hell portion, but it's unusually bright for a Doom level. I really want to see some dark and scary places with disturbing dark ambient music playing. Maybe I'm being too nostalgic.

I'd prefer Doom 4 to be scary not by trying hard at it, like Doom 3, but by being more complex. Lack of story explanation helps too, and the id guys indeed didn't say much about the story so far. If instead it gets unveiled as you advance, it's better. It will probably be spoilt by you, unfortunately.

Technically, the way they introduced hell to us was by rocks, fog/smoke and fire.
And those flying sparks.
Fire everywhere, light also.
Plus, Hell's got so many torches in classic Doom.
I think its great. Not like Classic Doom's Hell, but a Hell unique for Doom 2016.

Although, I would like some portions to have a bit of darkness for some suspense and atmosphere.

That Hell level was probably the boss level (who wants to fight a boss in darkness?).

Voros said:

That Hell level was probably the boss level (who wants to fight a boss in darkness?).

I Do, would be a badass fight, just imagine :)

DMGUYDZ64 said:

I Do, would be a badass fight, just imagine :)

Yes it would.
But the newbies wouldn't.
And I'm average in gaming, so *sigh*. It would be a massacre... like my first time on E1M3 and that blue key card... and those imps out of nowhere.

Definitely it won't be scary, which is disappointing to me because I was expecting a feel like quake 1, a dismal ambience with grotesque monsters + faster gameplay.

Most of the enemy design look generic gray aliens. They should have hired poeple from games like Dead Space to bring some grotesque creatures to this Doom, even Resident Evil designers know how to make some really grotesque-gory monsters that stand out.

Doomers want a more fast paced, action oriented shoot-em-up Doom, and that's what we'll be getting. It is clearly filled with horror and dark subject matter, so there's that. And I think it will get scary at times, especially when you're surrounded by a horde of monsters and your low on health and ammo.