Female Slayer

1 hour ago, Murdoch said:

It could make for a more say survival horror take on the material where you have to protect civilians and maybe even your own family in the middle of all this madness.

Wow. So you think it makes narrative sense to forgo the completely inhuman strength (remind me which part of the lore says that it's because he's a man?) and replace it with having to play fucking dollhouse? Dude. It's one thing if you like bubs. But you basically just said "get back in the kitchen." Worst take I've heard on this yet.

2 hours ago, magicsofa said:

So you think it makes narrative sense to forgo the completely inhuman strength

For a different angle of the story of the invasion, yes.

2 hours ago, magicsofa said:

(remind me which part of the lore says that it's because he's a man?)

Literally nowhere, nor did I say that, nor did anything I say imply it. I cannot believe I have to quote myself but here we are...

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 a new female character you can play as with different abilities and a compelling reason to be there at all, absolutely. Her powers and moves could rely more on speed and agility than brute strength.

So yeah, please stop projecting something onto me I very clearly never meant to imply, that's a fucking shitty thing to do. 

2 hours ago, magicsofa said:

replace it with having to play fucking dollhouse?

What?

2 hours ago, magicsofa said:

But you basically just said "get back in the kitchen."

No I fucking didn't. Not really sure what your angle is here. You may not like the "more regular person" idea for a side story here as a way to bring in a female protagonist to the series in a different way that is not just simply "The Slayer, but Female" and that's fine but frankly if you are trying to paint me as having ideas like this you can kindly go fuck yourself. Again I quote myself.

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Strong females are awesome.

The slight issue with all this is Hugo Martin didn't make it clear in any way at all what he was actually thinking.  It could be any of:

• There is a new playable character with the similar abilities to the Doomguy, and is female (e.g. Crash)
• Doomguy has a gender-select option (e.g. same character, different sex, but no bearing on the game. Think Mass Effect's Shepard) 
• Doomguy is retconned as a girl (Doomguy is now female, and it has a bearing on the game)

I have very different feelings on the validity of all of these, and it's nothing to do with the sex of the character.  Without knowing which he was envisioning, it's hard to really critique it.

4 minutes ago, Bauul said:

The slight issue with all this is Hugo Martin didn't make it clear in any way at all what he was actually thinking.  It could be any of:

• There is a new playable character with the similar abilities to the Doomguy, and is female (e.g. Crash)
• Doomguy has a gender-select option (e.g. same character, different sex, but no bearing on the game. Think Mass Effect's Shepard) 
• Doomguy is retconned as a girl (Doomguy is now female, and it has a bearing on the game)

I have very different feelings on the validity of all of these, and it's nothing to do with the sex of the character.  Without knowing which he was envisioning, it's hard to really critique it.

i think we will see some kinda of "doomverse" down the line 

that is multiple slayers from different times and dimensions doom is the perfect series to do this so maybe if they can add a female character this way give the explanation that she has the same story as the doom slayer but from a different dimension

16 hours ago, Marisa Kirisame said:

You're not automatically the most badass because you're a MANLY MAN MAN or anything, and girls aren't icky nor give cooties.

Samus Aran absolutely agrees. Kicking asses wearing full exoskeleton armor since 1986.

Well, given how we all saw Hugo’s words on the matter, I think it’s time I threw my hat in the ring in regards to how a female Slayer would work.

And just to preface this, the Doom universe IS NOT PREDICATED on whether the Slayer has a Y chromosome or not.

I mean, we have a timeline that shows us that Doom’s angels turned out to be amoral and self-serving as well as the Lucifer Morningstar equivalent literally being just the evil counterpart to our hero. I mean, the worst that could happen if Davoth took the form of a woman is that the game itself also gets a “Nudity” slapped onto its ESRB rating or that the Dark Lord shows up without nipples or something, considering that Davoth and the Slayer are essentially two sides of the same coin. (Hell, you can still keep Davoth as male-presenting if you so desire.)

The Slayer losing the Y chromosome is not going to mean “zOMFG now they've officially gone too far and ruined the story!1!1!1!1!!1!11!1!11!!!!1!1!1!1”; I seriously doubt it’s going to have significant bearing on the story.

That, and it’s extremely unlikely that the Slayer is just going to get flat-out replaced with a woman after Eternal’s initial release, so calm the fuck down.

(And in case you’re wondering, that preamble isn’t really for anyone here but rather for those OAG/QuarterPounder types who are likely going to bitch and moan about how id Software “has already gone full woke” or some other stupid shit.)

So in regards to just Doom Eternal itself, I feel it’d be best if the Commander Shepard route was taken, especially for reasons that I’m about to get into regarding Crash.

The thing with Crash is that she isn’t just “female Doomguy” or “Doomguy’s military instructor”. Even though she was mainly relegated as “Quake 3’s training bot”, she’s still a whole character who deserves more development.

Logically, Crash would be that female Doom Marine with the unique arsenal and moveset, and a whole backstory to go along with it that can still be “the Slayer’s military instructor”.

And as a result, it wouldn’t feel right for Crash to “just be the female Slayer” and that’s it.

And on a somewhat related note, if everyone’s clamoring for Crash to come back, why not bring back Phobos as well? Outside of maybe the overall armor color scheme, he’s pretty much been completely sidelined as a character too (hell, in some cases, Phobos has even been outright dismissed as “just a Doomguy palette swap”). Thing is, Phobos is a lot more than just “black Doomguy in orange armor”; seriously, he’s a whole character as well who deserves more agency.

Hell, let’s put Crash and Phobos into a full-on co-op mode for either Doom Eternal or an entirely new spinoff, brush up the game mechanics as such, and you’ve got a winning combo for co-op in nuDoom.

As for the “Slayer except female” plan for Doom Eternal, as stated earlier, we can go full Commander Shepard with it and just have the female Slayer wear the same suits (with the exception of Phobos which can be swapped out with a Crash skin), as well as switch over some pronouns and the Slayer’s VA accordingly, and even some minor aesthetic changes like different glory kills could be done. Minor gameplay changes can be involved, and either way, this could even allow Battlemode matches to allow an additional Slayer if so desired and really give Battlemode an additional shot in the arm.

Hell, why not do both?

Regardless of how something like this is done, not only are the additional options always nice and give the game itself more replay value (especially if a female Slayer leads to additional gameplay strategies), like @Major Arlene said, it’s worth mentioning that representation matters.
Women in the Doom community have always been around, and guys aren’t the only ones who want to engage in power fantasies like Doom 2016 or Eternal.