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Dalewb

Connection to earlier Doom games

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I was reading this thread from a couple years ago where people were debating the Doom reboot series' connection to the earlier Doom storylines/timelines, and one argument I kept hearing against this connection is the art style.  Most people felt that Doom3's Hell levels really looked like Hell, while the reboot wasn't nearly as scary, oppressive, or Hell-like.  They would use this fact as a rebuttal to the theory that the old and new games were connected story-wise.  I'm wondering if folks are still having the same thoughts today, following the events of Doom Eternal.

 

As a former game developer, my first reaction to this line of thinking was the games look different because 15 years have passed between the development of Doom3 and Eternal (roughly).  I don't know specifics, but it's safe to assume many of the original developers of 3 have moved on in life and career and that the reboot games have been developed by a mostly-new crop of developers.  Let's not even get into technology - the game engines powering the old and new games are vastly different.  It's mind-blowing how huge, detailed, and *open* the reboot levels are.  The whole concept of "I'll come to bed just as soon as this level is complete" has vastly different implications when levels completion times are measured in hours instead of minutes!  Anyways, I think it's ludicrous to discount story-line connections just because the old and new games look different.  Imagine if we applied the same argument to all of Star Trek...?  "Captain Kirk and everyone from the original series is from a different storyline/universe because they look all 1960s..."  What do y'all think?

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Doom 3's connection is disputed not because of looks but because of story issues.

Edit: I'll say this tho: suspicious sarcophagus in doom 3, hell maybe a hub between universes in new games, different doomguy?

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3's connection was disputed because of looks (check the link in original post) but if that has been debunked since, then I'm cool with it.

 

Hell as a hub actually makes sense based on the lore of the last game, due to the Khan Maykr allowing Hell to invade innumerable worlds to feed her world's insatiable hunger for electricity - I'm sure that left portals open all over the universe.

As in most (all?) reboots (good grief Star Trek, Star Wars, Terminator...) much license has been taken with the storyline here.  So trying to reconcile all the games into one cohesive narrative is sure to sprout all sorts of weird inconsistencies.

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I wouldn't say the look matters at all to the story. The in-game events of Eternal speak for themselves. Doom 1, Doom 2, Doom 64, Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal are all connected. I'm not sure if Final Doom is connected with this story though. I always forget what the plot of TNT and Plutonia are.

 

Doom 3, however, is the black sheep. It's the one that makes the least sense for being connected to the others. The events sync up closest with Doom 1, and thus that leaves two possibilities to me:

  • Doom 3 is strictly a reimagining of Doom 1. You could play Doom 3 then go to Doom 2, for example.
  • Doom 3 is during the events of Doom 1 and we play as a different marine while Doomguy is doing his thing over on Phobos.

I'm more inclined to believe the first option.

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I feel like there's a lot of inconsistencies, from how Doom 2's manual describes Doomguy's arrival on Earth, to Eternal's Gladiator not bleeding green, to Doomguy being found in his classic armor and not the 64 one. (and what the colors of his gloves are)

And on the subject of art styles, Doom's sci-fi side of things looks more "advanced" compared to the simpler, even if outdated look of Doom, which even 3 sort of carried.

And the demonic stuff has a lot of pointy bits and chitin.

 

There are some trend-base and technical differences.

I guess the new Doom lore really is Doom-like because of the parts where things stop making sense.

 

A personal pet peeve of mine is when most of the antagonists aren't really Hell itself, but characters either associated/close to or even manipulated/controlled by Hell.

But i wish we had like the Icon of Sin copying Korax from Hexen where his face pops up on UAC screens or something and he taunts you as you progress the game.

Kind of the same reason why Hell seems stronger and more of the main baddie when they're the ones developing cybernetic demons and feeling more supernatural/abstract.

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On 4/9/2020 at 2:20 PM, Nevander said:

 I'm not sure if Final Doom is connected with this story though. I always forget what the plot of TNT and Plutonia are.

TNT takes place after the original Doom games on a moon of Jupiter where the UAC is continuing research into "matter apportation" under vastly increased security measures.  They did get attacked but quickly fought off the attack and strengthened their defenses.  Research continued more boldly until one day Hell's armies showed up unannounced via a massive spaceship and launched a full-scale invasion of the base.  Everyone was killed except for you - you were (you guessed it) miles away on a walk.  So you rush back to the base and kill everything there.

 

Plutonia takes place on Earth after the previous events.  UAC is once again reborn - this time on Earth. If keeping their experiments with Hell far away on a moon of Jupiter failed spectacularly with the death of everyone present, bringing that failed enterprise to Earth seemed like a good idea because what's the worst that could happen?  They devised a device (Quantum Accelerator) that could from a distance quickly close any portal that opened.  The first invasion portal was quickly closed and everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the success; but later, when 7 opened, the device proved too slow to be effective enough, and by the time it closed the last portal, too many demons had arrived to defend against and the base was overrun.  You also missed this catastrophe, being on leave at the beach this time, when you got word.  Although the entire Marine Corps of the United States was on its way, you knew they would be too late.  So "it's up to you..." again.  

 

I LOL'd when I first read "The United States Space Marine Corps was prepared for such an event..."  The scenario is so campy, and ridiculous... whew!

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