Are there really a lot of people that think all the Id IPs should be tied together to D2016/DE?

[kawadec]

Tom Hall confirmed Doomguy and Keen are descendants of B.J., so we know at least the classic iterations of those franchises are in the same universe. Whether new Wolfenstein and 2016/Eternal share a similar connection, who knows yet. Personally I think they could say that the former takes place about two centuries earlier on the same Earth as Eternal and it could work. Or at least it wouldn't make things any more complicated than the "Slayer = Doomguy" revelation already has.

[Murdoch]

I think it is a stupid and pointless idea to link them. The old phrase about square pegs and round holes comes to mind. I think any easter eggs linking them are exactly that - easter eggs. With the possible exception of the Slayer being a descendant of BJ, any other forced connection is pointless and adds nothing to the narrative and even that one really does not add anything. In Quake, you clearly are not fighting traditional demons. Why bother linking it? Same with Quake 2 and 4 where you fight aliens. Rage is set on post apocalyptic Earth but not one of Hell's making so unless you want to argue it's an even more distant future after another apocalypse again you are stretching to make a connection. And then where would the Strogg invasion fit in? If you have to think and twist things too hard then it doesn't work.

 

Obviously they are all their own distinct universes, with Quake 3 and Champions bringing some characters together in the Arena from across said universes.

[jerrysheppy]

First of all, just to recap: all the Doom games that are already canonically connected still don't fit in one linear, undistorted timeline.  1/2/64 -> 2016/Eternal just doesn't work very well if you attempt to reconcile it as being a single timeline with time flowing the same for Doomguy as it does for Earth/the UAC.  Not to mention the fact that the history of the UAC seems to be explicitly different.

 

Which is fine.  It just means that we go to multiple timelines, which has pretty heavily been implied already.  Doomguy/Doom Slayer originates from a timeline where UAC fucked things up by investigating anomalies on Phobos and Deimos.  He ends up (for now) in a timeline where UAC fucked things up by mining energy from the Argent Fissure on Mars, incidentally prodded/helped along by an angelic being incarnated first as a human and then as a nine-foot robot.  None of this is particularly offensive by the standards of sci-fi plots.  As far as I'm concerned, every bit of whatever cringe has taken place (and I don't think anyone can credibly argue that there isn't some nonzero amount of cringe) can be laid firmly at the feet of the scriptwriting rather than the premise itself.  Eternal's writing, at that; 2016 was pretty much pitch-perfect.

 

So now that we're firmly in 'you can access alternate timelines through dimensional fuckery' territory—which, as I say, isn't a bad premise, at all—I really wouldn't have a problem with gates being canonically opened between one of the Doom timelines and the other timelines.  There can be flesh-and-fire Hell dimensions such as Doom has traditionally been, and there can be warped Lovecraftian dimensions.  There can be "prime material planes" (to borrow the Planescape/D&D language) where scientists opened gates to the former, and there can be ones where they opened gates to the latter.  There can be timelines where those scientists were Nazis in 1940, and there can be ones where they were working for the UAC in 2150.  And yes, there can be timelines where an asteroid apocalypse occurred before an infernal or eldritch one could.

 

All that being said, there are still some limits as to which properties should actually be shown crossing over in game.  As others have said, it's a matter of tonal and thematic compatibility.  Doom and Quake 1/Arena/Champions would go together like peanut butter and chocolate, and Wolfenstein would fit with either of those two to the extent that a particular Wolfenstein game incorporates Nazi occultism.  An expanded version on the Black Sun dimension, for example, could certainly fit on the cosmological map alongside the hells of Doom and the realms of Quake.  Quakes 2/4 would be harder to tie in, and maybe not worth the trouble, but if you really wanted to do it, you could key off the black-hole based gateway technology.  Commander Keen's connection should probably remain more or less limited to the pseudo-easter-egg of the Blazkowicz genealogy.  And Rage probably shouldn't ever be actually connected in an actual game; I just don't think it benefits either of the IPs.  At most, maybe have a quick visit sometime to an anonymous demon-ruined world where the players can deduce from easter eggs that it was the Rage universe, invaded and destroyed (...again) sometime well after the actual Rage games.

[Gez]

Just imagine history on the everything-connected-Earth.

 

First you have a turbo-charged World War II that lasted for decades or whatever's the reason for the Wolfenstein franchise to have moved its timeline to the 80s and they're still fighting the same goddamn nazis.

 

Then when the third reich's reign of terror is finally over, it's just time Shubniggurath's monster legions to invade. And then as soon as that's over, it's the demons. And they don't get neatly contained, they invade the Earth and destroy just about everything. When they're finally driven back and Earth is reclaimed, as soon as the repairs are mostly over, there's yet another fucking invasion, and it's the Strogg this time. Anyway, eventually the Earth is just a big heap of ruins but if you thought humans would have learned to band together after being attacked by three different alien threats, think again, because it's time to Rage!

 

What I'm saying is have pity on these poor guys, and let them have separate universes so they only have one horrible trauma to deal with.

[oCrapaCreeper]

With slip-gates being canon in Doom and ancient gods coming into play along with the fact there is already clearly timeline and dimensional fuckery, I'd be surprised if everything wasn't at least implied to be connected at this point even remotely. 

[rustygizzard]

my timeline theory is that wolf 3d, doom, and keen takes place in the same universe, with rage, the alternate universe wolf, and quake taking place in separate timelines. the slipgates, hell portals, and Q3A/QC ties the series altogether. all universes have the same hell, and that's why doomguy was able to travel from the classic universe to the new doom universe. another way i look at it is that not all timelines run at the same time, meaning that timelines could be at different points in history at any time. an example maybe being that while wolf 3d was taking place in one universe, and rage taking place at the same point in time in a separate universe.

 

i know a good amount of people don't like story/theories and use the story in a porn game quote constantly to discount it, but i think that it's fun letting people make their own connections between games, just let people have fun!

[Man of Doom]

Speaking from personal experience, the whole “everything that id made is somehow connected” is a phenomenon that has been relegated primarily to fanfiction and more recently social media with the rise of more recent id titles.

 

From what I’ve seen, id has always played fast and loose in regards to canonicity, even between games. I mean, how did Samuel Hayden suddenly go from “Argent energy must be harvested for the good of humanity” to “fuck this let’s destroy all of it because it literally consists of human suffering”, complete with an intricate knowledge of dimensions that were never explored by humans?

 

Outside of Quake III/Champions where it’s basically “multiple champions from different timelines/universes engage in a free-for-all”, I find a phenomenon like this to be something of a double-edged sword especially when it gets applied in practice:

 

On one hand, I definitely enjoyed the “Doomslayer is Doomguy” theory because not only did it essentially shut up the people who tried to WELL ACKSHUALLY others about Doom 2016 being “A HARD REBOOT AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE SO TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT”, it also enriched our favorite demon-slaying marine by essentially continuing his story and adding an extra degree of imagination by insinuating the potential canonicity of PWADs. Additionally, it further reinforces the idea of Hell itself being the one constant in a sea of multiverses, a literal embodiment of chaos itself.

 

On the other hand, it could lead to more questions than answers like what happened with Wolfenstein Youngblood, where we not only have BJ’s twin daughters (which calls Commander Keen’s existence into question), there’s also the usage of the God Key which literally allows people to see and possibly even step into other timelines.

 

However, it’s worth noting that the former is pretty much the only real time when multiple timelines/universes is explicitly put into practice whereas the latter seems to imply the possibility of such an event.

 

Otherwise, it’s mainly been just quirky Easter eggs and the words of developers long after the title has been released and that’s about it.

Edited October 8, 2020 by Man of Doom

[rustygizzard]

1 hour ago, Man of Doom said:

I mean, how did Samuel Hayden suddenly go from “Argent energy must be harvested for the good of humanity” to “fuck this let’s destroy all of it because it literally consists of human suffering”, complete with an intricate knowledge of dimensions that were never explored by humans?

just addressing this point, i'm thinking that the angle they're going for is that the maykrs need argent energy to avoid the transfiguration which led to their mass corruption of killing innocent beings to harvest argent. he (assuming he's the seraphim) did not want to participate in the mass murder that the rest of the maykrs were performing in order to avoid the transfiguration, but he also wanted to avoid it himself, so he went to the earth that the doomguy would eventually have to save, took on the fake identity of samuel hayden, and was able to help the humans, while at the same time hiding out from the maykrs and keeping himself from undergoing the transfiguration.

[scalliano]

3 hours ago, Man of Doom said:

Speaking from personal experience, the whole “everything that id made is somehow connected” is a phenomenon that has been relegated primarily to fanfiction and more recently social media with the rise of more recent id titles.

And Generatiions Arena. Seriously, more people need to play that mod...

 

I enjoy the concept of an id expanded universe, although more recent titles outside of DOOM have muddied the water somewhat. At this point, Quake Champions is pretty much the arena shooter equivalent of something like Capcom vs SNK*, whereas it could be argued that Q3A did actually tie all of the previous games together, albeit tenuously. But hey, it's fun to theorise.

 

I still think Doom 3 is a direct prequel, though.

 

*Actually, there's a thought: forget the DOOM crossover, could Master Chief show up in QC now? Probably not.

[TenenteZashu]

Mergin Doom with Wolfenstein? I'm ok with that since in Id's ''lore'' Bj is Doomguy's grandfather or something. Mergin Doom with Quake and Rage? No, I see Quake as it's own game, in it's own universe, as for Rage it could be loosely tied together with Quake since those cyborg enemies reminded me a lot of the Stroggs especially the ones from Quake 4.

 

But overall I think that if Id is gonna tie together their IPs it should be in this way because having two major universes is better and makes things less convoluted

[Zemini]

They are all in their own timeline or multiverse.  If Doom guy want to travel through the 5th dimension and kill some Q1 monsters ill be all for it.

[holaareola]

Dogshit imo.

 

Doom Eternal's stretches alone tore holes so big patching them up requires multiverses and time travel and all sorts of bollocks cop outs that are even worse than the cop out of saying 'look, you're a godlike space marine who sometimes collects cute little toys when he isn't setting near-naked zombies alight because the heat makes them sweat armour fragments --- here are a series of games united by a general theme and setting, we're leaving lore to other franchises better suited' would have been. 

 

Connecting even more will just multiply the guff.  As for why an audience would want it. I have no idea.  Because they have no taste?

[whatup876]

1 hour ago, holaareola said:

Connecting even more will just multiply the guff.  As for why an audience would want it. I have no idea.  Because they have no taste? 

Perhaps for the novelty of Doom officially having "lore" or the "officialization" of one or two concepts originally perceived heavily or carried by fans.

Question is if those involved in "Doom lore" are aware that it's a rather radically new inclusion to the series from a completely different group behind it, which is also part of a reboot that probably was supposed to actually reboot it until it was somehow connected to the originals.

And also if they'd even look up classic "lore" and see the differences and all.

 

Maybe some will still like it regardless if they even see it as "Doom".

There is also some irony to how Fallout's universe is now treated compared to Doom.

 

But i don't think it's wrong to see if there's something "commercial" about the inclusion of Doom lore, since it feels like something tied to the current state of "nerd culture" and the stuff around it.

For what we know, some people invested in "Doom lore" probably want to get into a fictional universe to get that nerdy attitude but they may think it's too late to get into some franchises with older expanded universes, so they go with something more recent, even if it's technically an odd element to the series it's in.

Plus, whether or not they'll even look at how previous "investments" in Doom ranged from obsessively analyzing the gameplay design to the mods and wads subculture.

Or if they met someone who cared about "Doom lore" before they did and they point out how Doomguy's gloves are supposed to be brown/tanned and not black just because of the sprites vs cover differences.

Or even see the "outside" influences that lead to these games and start to wonder how these games could have ended up if someone on 4chan never wrote that one or two texts describing "here's something you didn't know about the Doomguy" or if ScrewAttack never made that Death Battle episode.

[Doominator2]

If that's the case, I cant wait to find out where Rescue Rover fits in the timeline.

[thewormofautumn]

Loose ties are okay. Like Rage 2 and Quake have some similar themes. The Authority is almost the Strogg anyway

 

Rage 2 and Eternal both feature broken moons in the sky. 
 

those sorts of links are enough for me tbh