End of the Doom Slayer's arc?

[Samuel Slayer]

Hugo mentioned the blood swamps! It was referenced in Doom Eternal lore. It's where they turn the damned souls into demons, if I'm correct.

[Taurus Daggerknight]

Where the souls of those who are rejected from the Hell Energy/ Argent process are cast into, yeah. I admit, I am curious. 

 

[Samuel Slayer]

Does that mean that those who are used as Argent energy powering Urdak find salvation, like Khan Maykr says in her bossfight?

[Gez]

6 hours ago, Samuel Slayer said:

Hugo mentioned the blood swamps! It was referenced in Doom Eternal lore. It's where they turn the damned souls into demons, if I'm correct.

Demons are made from those who've had their soul extracted, we see the process in a cutscene in Doom Eternal.

 

The Blood Swamps are for Kalibas' rejects, they keep their damned soul and turn into Unwilling/Hell Zombies.

[KainXavier]

@Gez

I still contend that DOOM 3: Lost Mission and DOOM: Resurrection take place in separate universes. :p

As for the topic at hand, it'll be interesting to see how id wraps up the existing storyline with the DLC.  Personally, I'm hoping for some kind of closure.  I love the DOOM series but I think a return to Quake 1's universe is overdue.  (I also wouldn't mind a new single player IP despite how much I disliked Rage.)

That said, if id does choose to continue the DOOM Slayer's story, I hope it'll involve multiverse shenanigans and a passing of the torch.  I want to see a team-up between the various protagonists in the series.  I also want to see obscure characters like Phobos and Crash get their due.  The DOOM Slayer is damn near the most powerful being in the multiverse.  Somebody else can (and should) have a turn.

[Samuel Slayer]

Then what are demons?

[Hellektronic]

2 hours ago, Samuel Slayer said:

Then what are demons?

 

Hm... I think it's implied that the soulless corpses of the damned slowly mutate into demons? It's kind of vague about it though.

[whatup876]

I think some demons still come to form differently.

I remember that Doom 64 had his premise of visiting different version of Hell in different cultures and wonder if that could have been a premise for a Doom game, to experiment on different art directions in a single game.

It could lead to needing a few more artists and some art style clash in the game but imagine revisiting different versions of Hell that existed in the series and some new stuff, some that seem like tributes or homages to Hell in different games or media. (something just to show the different planes of Hell in Doom)

 

I also remember some concept art for the Hellrazer bleeding orange(?) and how that could have made them like the Eternal Barons were they could be lava made or something.

I wonder if they even thought of tree demons, like weird demons that disguise as trees or something, then walk freely.

This is mostly because of the art style of the new games.

Like how the Baalgar in 2016 kinda looked like a rock golem deer so imagine an actual deer looking beast.

[TheRedTide]

On 9/5/2020 at 5:38 PM, Samuel Slayer said:

Then what are demons?

You, John. You are the demons.

[Chaddyboy]

On 9/6/2020 at 2:10 PM, whatup876 said:

I think some demons still come to form differently.

I remember that Doom 64 had his premise of visiting different version of Hell in different cultures and wonder if that could have been a premise for a Doom game, to experiment on different art directions in a single game.

 

THIS!!! I always figured the reason Hell looks so different between games is that Doomguy is in different regions, especially in Doom 64. If they're setting up the Dark Lord for the next game (or Ancient Gods part 2, which would be lame to reveal the big bad only in a DLC), then they could go this route. 

 

[Man of Doom]

On 9/6/2020 at 2:10 PM, whatup876 said:

I think some demons still come to form differently.

I remember that Doom 64 had his premise of visiting different version of Hell in different cultures and wonder if that could have been a premise for a Doom game, to experiment on different art directions in a single game.

It's also worth mentioning that the Doom 64 renditions of the demons are implied to be mutated tissue due to the Motherdemon's resurrective powers corrupting their physical forms further, resulting in unpredictable effects ranging from the existence of Nightmare Imps to Pain Elementals/Cacodemons swapping their overall color palettes and forms.

[Samuel Slayer]

On 9/14/2020 at 5:31 AM, TheRedTide said:

You, John. You are the demons.

And then John......was a zombie!

[Gez]

On samedi 5 septembre 2020 at 10:38 PM, Samuel Slayer said:

Then what are demons?

Soulless husks.

[Scrabbs]

On 9/3/2020 at 12:27 AM, Chezza said:

 the only way to tie the actual games together is multi-dimensional hopping or time travel. I sincerely hope that's not the case as that's lazy writing like in comic books. 

it is

[bfredric]

On 9/5/2020 at 4:29 PM, KainXavier said:

@Gez

I still contend that DOOM 3: Lost Mission and DOOM: Resurrection take place in separate universes. :p

As for the topic at hand, it'll be interesting to see how id wraps up the existing storyline with the DLC.  Personally, I'm hoping for some kind of closure.  I love the DOOM series but I think a return to Quake 1's universe is overdue.  (I also wouldn't mind a new single player IP despite how much I disliked Rage.)

That said, if id does choose to continue the DOOM Slayer's story, I hope it'll involve multiverse shenanigans and a passing of the torch.  I want to see a team-up between the various protagonists in the series.  I also want to see obscure characters like Phobos and Crash get their due.  The DOOM Slayer is damn near the most powerful being in the multiverse.  Somebody else can (and should) have a turn.

I thought rage was fun. Not as replayable  as doom 2016 but there were no out of bounds areas not too many cutscenes and the gameplay was really good. Kind of a halfway between classic shooters and far cry

[Kaos]

On 9/5/2020 at 10:29 PM, KainXavier said:

@Gez

That said, if id does choose to continue the DOOM Slayer's story, I hope it'll involve multiverse shenanigans and a passing of the torch.  I want to see a team-up between the various protagonists in the series.  I also want to see obscure characters like Phobos and Crash get their due.  The DOOM Slayer is damn near the most powerful being in the multiverse.  Somebody else can (and should) have a turn.

 

I'm not so sure this would work. In the last games they elevated the doom guy status to a new level, with all this Doom Slayer thing. Doom and his main character are almost indivisible entities. It would like to have a Serious Sam game without Serious Sam or a Duke Nukem game without Duke Nukem (well that did not go well even with Duke Nukem).

The point is Doom to be Doom need to be exactly what it is. A fast paced, no reload, first person shooter. When this formula was warped it did not yield the expected results.

 

So you can say, keep the formula and change the guy. But who would be able to face the hordes of hell in the same fast paced and devastating way apart of the doom guy? And as the doom creators said, the doom guy did not have a name because it's supposed to be YOU the player. In the sequels / reboot, the doom slayer acquire a sort of backstory, but remain, like the half life protagonist, quite anonymous. They never speak, they never show particular emotions (even if in 2016, the protagonist can convey a series of feelings based on his actions of smashing monitors and basically giving Hayden the middle finger when he tries to provide instructions).

 

So even if we assume the next doom will have another character, if he will be able to play the same way and convey the same kind of feats, would not be end up to be like a doom slayer? Does really matter who is the doom slayer since, in the first place, it doesn't matter? You can take away daisy, you can take away the room in the fortress with all the toys and guitars and replace it with a room with gritty trophies instead. You can even take all that out and have the classic doom, where there is a guy with guns traversing levels full of demons. Hell, you can take even out the SSG and have a perfectly fine classic Doom 1. 

What can't you take away is the general design of the game, the fast paced action and the design of the enemies. Just switching from Doom to FreeDoom, with that custom skins, did not feel to me to play Doom. If you play Heretic for example, same engine, same more or less characteristics, he does not feel fantasy Doom. It feels Heretic. Doom is defined by a strong identity  that makes it what it is, and it's not the character that traverse the levels but the levels themselves and how do you feel while you traverse that levels. They make you feel like "let's do this" or "come get some" (well maybe not exactly like that, would  be too much Duke Nukem). They do not make you feel scared or powerless. So eventually, no matter who the Doom guy or the Doom Slayer really is, in his own game he will be the Doom Slayer, because it can't be otherwise. Is not the Doom Slayer that makes Doom what it is, but it's Doom that makes the Doom Slayer. They're a indiscernible equation, a indivisible paradigm.

 

Because a Doom Slayer can be temporary. But Doom is Eternal.

[igg]

19 minutes ago, Kaos said:

I'm not so sure this would work.

Just imagine the Slayer giving his armor and SSG to a random unnamed marine. Maybe the Slayer has to sacrifice himself at the end of Part II?

[Kaos]

And then what would change?

Do you want a character with a different backstory? Or that act differently?

If this new guy has the armor and the ssg (that let's say are the iconic characteristics of the character right now) isn't he going to be the doom slayer anyway?

It's a bit like the superheroes. If batman pass the ball to someone else, isn't that other person to be batman as well? And from a point of a external beholder that does not know the backstory what difference would it make? It's still the goddamn batman.

[igg]

9 minutes ago, Kaos said:

And then what would change?

Do you want a character with a different backstory? Or that act differently?

If this new guy has the armor and the ssg (that let's say are the iconic characteristics of the character right now) isn't he going to be the doom slayer anyway?

I'd like to see a more realistic approach. The Slayer became a ultimate rip and tear machine with superpowers. But what about a marine who is just a regular human under Vegas protection? 

 

I'm not asking for Call of Doom, but a more serious and marine-like approach would be definitely interesting. Maybe he meets the Slayer, Vega or Samuel and gets their attention because of his not-supernatural but still impressive skills.

[Kaos]

Ok so what are you seeking here is a change in gameplay/approach more than character. Wuold you like it to be more like the classical doom? Or maybe quake? Now as much as quake is the successor of doom in every way, we can classify it as "not doom", because the pace feel a bit different (don't ask me to pinpoint it exactly, I can't). 

[whatup876]

I'm probably repeating stuff from my previous posts but "end of Slayer arc" doesn't have to mean end of Doom or Doomguy.

Mostly because i see the new games as a very experimental reiteration on Doom.

Like 3 and even RPG but to a higher degree.

 

Probably because both in the franchise and fanmade works, Doom has a lot of experimentation and versatility, for one or two small games with a weird and silly identity, that was made for the innovation and impact it would lead to. (this also leads to some worries i have that Doom having lore could lead to some restrictions, since the new games change so much about its identity)

So, who knows if a game after the 2016/Eternal era could have been another reboot or reinterpretation, even if it's a spin off.

Maybe it could be the actual throwback/modernization on classic Doom that the new games never achieved or something that felt really close to some fan works. (to the point they may have actually collaborated with some modders and fans)

Or something completely different and with new designs and ideas, for better or worse.

 

For all the things that could be done with Doom as a franchise, one could probably study or analyze a bunch of stuff and make a huge list.

(posted on wrong thread)

[thewormofautumn]

11 hours ago, Kaos said:

And then what would change?

Do you want a character with a different backstory? Or that act differently?

Remember that this Slayer is just one marine from one earth. There are multiple earths. Maybe he can pass on his weapons to his clone in another universe and it’s essentially the same character taking on the fight, this time without super powers 

[nycemt123]

I could see a story arc of wolfenstein & doom blended together. Great-great-great-etc grandfather and doomslayer united in a coop campaign to rid the multiverse of a nazi-demonic empire.

Jumping back and forth between hell, the future (alien planets, demolished Earth & concentration camp pocket-dimensions), Hitler and his descendants must be wiped out to return order to the chaos.

 

I call it... Doomenstein 😈

Edited October 17, 2020 by nycemt123 : To add final conclusion and spelling

[igg]

1 hour ago, nycemt123 said:

I could see a story arc of wolfenstein & doom blended together. Great-great-great-etc grandfather and doomslayer united in a coop campaign to rid the multiverse of a nazi-demonic empire.

The connection between Wolfenstein and Doom are the spaceships.

The connection between Doom and Quake are the slipgates.

What if the UAC was founded by former Nazi engineers? Nazi -> Spaceships -> UAC -> Mars -> Slipgate to multiverse (including Hell and Quake)

I'd call it "Doomstein"

I hope nobody from id reads this post :-)

[whatup876]

Something i'm surprised they haven't done is made the Slayer literally faceless and made it as if his face was ripped off, so he was disfigured like some Freddy Krueger looking freak.

Like, a metaphor for Doomguy losing his humanity just to become the ultimate killing machine. (and something based on that one time Joker literally cut off his face i forgot where/when he did that)

 

At some point, the Slayer find his detached face in some place and it's like a sloppy fleshy mask and when he puts it on, it magically heals up and comes back to his head.

He also screams because he also got his voice back.

So he's Doomguy again but he got weaker because it was either his ultimate power or his humanity.

 

Like something to play with the fact 2016 made him obscure his face 90% of the time.

You'd have this first person cutscenes where you put a face's skin over the camera but way before that, the Divinity machine section except a bit more extreme.

[Martin-CAI]

11 hours ago, whatup876 said:

At some point, the Slayer find his detached face in some place and it's like a sloppy fleshy mask and when he puts it on, it magically heals up and comes back to his head.

[Cacodoomonic]

On 9/2/2020 at 4:08 AM, Zemini said:

He meant end of the story arc that started with 2016.  He said that there are more stories to tell and they havn't made the best doom game yet.  So maybe we get DLC3 or a Doom 6 ... or both!

Or even better, A DOOM ETERNAL with all the DLC on the disc, so it's preserved in our collections forever. Then Doom 6. Also, a Doom game without Doom Guy may not be popular, but it is very possible. Doom 3 was not DOOMGUY. It was a Doom Marine, and I love that game. Not fast paced or action packed, but it handles it beautifuly.

[whatup876]

The fact that they said they have "more stories to tell of the Doom universe" makes me wonder if we could ever get "too much" of this Doom iteration.

And if it no longer sees itself as a reboot, but instead the main Doom for now. (that and the series' former reputation of caring less about its own story or how fans already built a universe)

 

Specially because this game is an innovation on Doom, like 3 (even if this one had its problems) but 3 felt like it admited being just something for experimentation, while the new games feel like they want to be more.

Because for a series associated with innovation and experiments, it'd be weird if we stopped seeing another "reboot" or something different and had a lot more games based on a specific version of Doom.

 

At least the people that complain about how Doom "is not the same anymore" could just stop and think "oh yeah, wads are a thing" but new fans don't seem to think much about modding as a concept.

For all the things that can be done with these games, there could be a point where it'd be kinda saturated. (that and there could be some ideas with potential that just won't work with these games, whether it's on lore, gameplay or anything else)

 

I think with Wolfenstein, we already have a lot of MachineGames' take on the series and it didn't seem to go that well.

At least with Doom, we're seeing a lot of good stuff and in some ways, it's probably a good thing that Eternal feels different from 2016.

And i guess with "reiterating" Doom, it'd take a lot of work and risks.

Although something like Doom RPG only partially took from classic Doom and 3 to be its own thing, while VFR for example was tied to 2016 in terms of setting.

 

I guess this is why some people want Doom 3 to have a proper sequel or given another chance: If we get too much of the Slayer games, some hope another version of the series is given some care for the sake of balance.

One could even say not even the classic games felt that "expanded" on but that's partially because Doom's identity always felt like a mystery that could be solved with a lot of different or similar answers, so those were already somewhat done in modding.

[thewormofautumn]

50 minutes ago, whatup876 said:

but new fans don't seem to think much about modding as a concept.

I’ve been playing Doom since the early 90s when it came out and have never to this date had any interest in mods. It’s not just new fans.

 

The flip side is I’m sure some new fans DO have interest in mods 

[D4NUK1]

6 hours ago, whatup876 said:

The fact that they said they have "more stories to tell of the Doom universe" makes me wonder if we could ever get "too much" of this Doom iteration.

And if it no longer sees itself as a reboot, but instead the main Doom for now. (that and the series' former reputation of caring less about its own story or how fans already built a universe)

Just a hypothetical case, but what if this happens, all newer Doom expands on Doom Eternal Story, what it's bad about that? Because we're out of Fuel of Classic Doom History, Lore and such.