What do you think about DOOM's Lore?

[Teo Slayer]

So, what are your thoughts about DOOM's Lore? About my opinion, I can say it's messed up but it isn't so bad

[dmslr]

Doom doesn't have a lore. It's has a story.

[Teo Slayer]

1 minute ago, dmslr said:

Doom doesn't have a lore. It's has a story.

It has a lore actually. It has a story and a lore

[Sergeant G]

Well DOOM is an interesting hybrid. In some respects Satan and demons are kind of obsolete. 

In the original DOOM novels, the authors tried to imply that the demons were in fact some kind of alien race.

I personally reject that idea, as I feel that's not at all what the games themselves show or say, however that's just my opinion, your interpretation may be different.

I think that in DOOM, Hell is Hell, it has just been situated in the context of the future which is more in vogue and has been since the 1990's when DOOM first arose. 

It's an interesting twist, and a subtlety of this franchise that DOOM 3 did not miss and even made a point of stating explicitly at the beginning; 

The Devil is real. 

In an atheistic, nihilistic present, we take comfort in envisioning a future where the fear of any Hellish afterlife has been banished forever. 

Well, in DOOM, it seems the future cannot save us. The universe has hostile dimensions in the Lovecraftian sense, forces which can eviscerate us when the UAC goes and messes around with dimensional transportation systems left over from extinct species. 

So, we have Hell and Martians, or whoever they were. The Soul Cube and DOOM 3 DOOMGUY were in haste, DOOM is not big on exposition. Is the Hell of DOOM a Hell in the Judeo Christian sense? Imho, yes and no. We have satanic realms and imagery, but the Devil with horns and a pitchfork is seemingly absent. It seems that in DOOM, Hell is ruled by aristocratic Icons of Sin, Spiderdemons and Cyberdemons, perhaps closer to the Cenobites of Hellraiser, another franchise which embraces Hell but skips Lucifer. 

Then there's the camp which says the story is irrelevant, id Software could not market the game with zero storyline, so the story was just a skeleton to give the experience some kind of context. But that seems to have shifted, hasn't it? In years past, the idea was that DOOMGUY is you. But more recently, if I'm not mistaken, it has been established that DOOMGUY is descended from ole' BJ, which frankly, makes a lot more sense, at least to me. 

In case it wasn't already obvious, I am in the camp which would have preferred a little bit more story. Okay, BJ is DOOMGUY'S ancestor, what, if any is the connection between the nazis and BJ's final experience at the end of Spear Of Destiny? How does that relate to DOOM? These are just two of many interesting questions.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Sergeant G

[ebrl]

There are plenty of reasons people still play DOOM and none of them are even remotely related to "lore". DOOM lore is kill dudes and get to the exit, anything beyond that is missing the point.

[Teo Slayer]

3 minutes ago, ebrl said:

There are plenty of reasons people still play DOOM and none of them are even remotely related to "lore". DOOM lore is kill dudes and get to the exit, anything beyond that is missing the point.

I personally care about the game rather the lore. But a desicion about the lore wouldn't be bad

[Sergeant G]

7 minutes ago, Teo Slayer said:

I personally care about the game rather the lore. But a desicion about the lore wouldn't be bad

I'm curious, you said it's messed up? How? What decisions are you looking for?

[J.Argon]

I think the newer doom lore is absolute cringey trash compared to the ol classic's "story" of hell just invaded one day cause UAC science or something.... Either way, I didnt care because i played doom for the gameplay not the story.

 

 

Spoiler

 

Edited September 5, 2021 by J.Argon

[StrangerRanger]

I don't like the fantasy part of the lore, wish it just stayed the old way where it was basically just demons and the UAC marine with guns.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

I'm definitely not a fan of what they have going on with Eternal. Convoluted, amateur writing, poorly implemented, lacking any impact, unnecessary, and as Argon said, it can be pretty cringeworthy. The bullshit plot in Eternal does nothing to enhance the game for me, and it seems to have been written by a D&D nerd with only a vague idea of the atmosphere that a DOOM game is supposed to capture. I also fucking hate the "stop and pick up this card and read a bunch of text" storytelling method being part of an action packed FPS. This isn't Bioshock. And even if it was, at least the audiotapes in Bioshock are narrated so you can keep playing while listening to them.

 

In short, I think it's garbage. I'll take the old environmental storytelling and minimalism over the shit in Eternal any day. 

 

Also, why start a topic like this if you aren't going to share your own opinion on the matter? Nobody knows what you mean by "it's a little messed up but isn't so bad".

Edited September 5, 2021 by TheMagicMushroomMan

[Gez]

Classic Doom: not much lore but that's okay. Keeping things relatively vague and abstract is better.

Doom novels: ridiculously bad. Let's pretend they never happened.

Doom 3: did we really need a Betruger? or the Martian civilization? anyways it's serviceable, mostly. Like Classic Doom, things are kept vague to focus on what matters, the gameplay.

Doom 3 novels: I never cared to find out what they're about, so I have no opinion.

Doom movie: ridiculously bad. Let's pretend it never happened.

Doom 2016: lore is kinda silly, but it still mostly works.

Doom Eternal: lore climbed on a sentinel motorbike, sped up an ancient maykr ramp, and jumped over a demonic cybershark

The Ancient Gods: Demonic Cybershark 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Demonic Cybershark 3: Attack of the Killer Cybersharknadoes From Outer Space

 

Basically my opinion is that to make Doom's premise work, you have to keep things vague and mysterious as much as possible. Notably, my number one cardinal sin is personifying the demons. To make them work as demons, they need to be unquestionably evil but also fully inscrutable. As soon as you have demons talking in English, you've jumped a shark. The second is explaining the demons. If you start making them like fully biological creatures, you no longer have demons but aliens.

 

It's perfectly acceptable to make a game about aliens who invade from another dimension, perhaps after some teleportation experiment on our side goes wrong, and which are able to recruit human traitors by promising them stuff because they've learned to speak human languages and so on. That's a premise that can perfectly work! It's fine, I have no problem with it. But if you do that, you don't end up with Doom, you end up with Half-Life. So if you want a Doom game, don't turn the demons into aliens. Don't turn them into people. Keep them supernatural. Keep them relentlessly hostile.

[lokbustam257]

i almost don't care about it. at least with classic doom anyway

[snapshot]

florida man's bunny dies and he commits genocide on demons

[Teo Slayer]

18 minutes ago, sluggard said:

florida man's bunny dies and he commits genocide on demons

Isn't he a Texan?

[Apprentice]

Doom having lore is just as a p0rn movie with a story, not nessacery . . .  8)

[Synuś Vader]

It's messy

[Synuś Vader]

3 hours ago, J.Argon said:

I think the newer doom lore is absolute cringey trash compared to the ol classic's "story" of hell just invaded one day cause UAC science or something.... Either way, I didnt care because i played doom for the gameplay not the story.

 

 

  Hide contents

 

king, just king! :D

[Gez]

28 minutes ago, Teo Slayer said:

Isn't he a Texan?

There's nothing explicitly said about his identity at all. The closest we get is this:

Quote

You're a marine, one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action. Three years ago, you assaulted a superior officer for ordering his soldiers to fire upon civilians. He and his body cast were shipped to Pearl Harbor, while you were transferred to Mars, home of the Union Aerospace Corporation.

That mention of Pearl Harbor lets us infer that Doomguy's superior officer belongs to the American military. From there we can assume that the same is true of Doomguy, but actually it's perfectly possible that Doomguy and/or his superior were exchange officers, thereby breaking the connection that would make Doomguy part of the American military.

 

 

Furthermore, if we accept Doom Eternal as being in the same canon continuity, then there's even evidence that Doomguy isn't American. See in Doom II it's said that the invasion of Earth is centered right in Doomguy's hometown.

Quote

You have won! Your victory has enabled humankind to evacuate Earth and escape the nightmare. Now you are the only human left on the face of the planet. Cannibal mutations, carnivorous aliens, and evil spirits are your only neighbors. You sit back and wait for death, content that you have saved your species.

 

But then, Earth Control beams down a message from space: "Sensors have located the source of the alien invasion. If you go there, you may be able to block their entry. The alien base is in the heart of your own home city, not far from the starport." Slowly and painfully you get up from the fray.

And in Doom Eternal, the equivalent of that is the Super Gore Nest, said to be in Central Europe. So you could extrapolate that Doomguy's home city is in Central Europe.

[garu32]

Dumgui: git gud demons

Demons: haha fireballs go fium

Dumgui: oh no

Dumsleller: now i'm dum sleller

Demons: oh no

Dumsleller: oh yes
the end

[Teo Slayer]

2 minutes ago, LucasRafael132 said:

Dumgui: git gud demons

Demons: haha fireballs go fium

Dumgui: oh no

Dumsleller: now i'm dum sleller

Demons: oh no

Dumsleller: oh yes
the end

Later, Dumsleller kells his twin and goes to slep

THE (Real maybe) END

[Omniarch]

Not much, in both a literal and colloquial sense. I know absolutely nothing about Doom 3 or its lore and next to nothing about nuDoom's lore, and like it that way, and OG Doom's backstory is as barebones as they come, thank goodness.

 

My opinion of lore in general has declined over the years. I used to be a bit of a wiki-nut, spending countless hours reading (in hindsight rather poorly-written) articles about the wider universes of franchises such as Star Wars, Warcraft or Warhammer. Over time, though, I started to realize that the lore in question was actually rather shit; invariably convoluted, poorly-concieved and not all that interesting upon closer inspection.

 

Thus, unless we're talking the occasional item description in a Souls-like, video game lore is of no interest to me. In story-focused media, lore typically serves as simple flavour, or to add context to some more relevant aspect of the work, and generally should not stray beyond this role. Most video games worth their salt are not story-focused in a traditional sense, and so do not stand to benefit much from the addition of non-trivial lore.

 

That does not stop them from adding it, unfortunately. Even games I really enjoy, like Stalker, fall into the trap of trying to explain themselves to the player in literal terms on occasion. This is not neccessary, to my mind. Personally, I'd prefer to have the Zone remain a mystery, rather then be explained by way of some vague pseudo-science conspiracy bullshit. If Stalker (a franchise with actual world-building) is best left unexplained, then adding lore to Doom is a complete fool's errand.

 

As I said before, I don't know much about nuDoom's lore, but what I do know is enough to make me disdain it. For example, the idea of the "Doomslayer" has to be one of the cringiest yet imagined in the interactive medium. You can't just play as some poor marine, caught up in events beyond their control, no no, you have to be the literal embodiment of "badass", an immortal demon slayer on an eternal crusde against evil.

 

What is this, Warhammer 40k? At least that franchise is built to accommodate such absurdities in a consistent and actually kind of cool way. Doom? No way in hell (pardon the pun). One could argue that the "Doomslayer" is just a throwback to a bygone era of hyper-macho protagonists rather than a symptom of the lore, and I'll admit that I am not really knowledgeable enough on the subject to dispute that, but there seems to be a certain po-faced semi-seriousness to his protrayal that is more reminiscent of Halo's Master Chief than, say, Duke Nukem.

 

All that's not even getting into the idiotic science-fantasy elements I've heard tidbits about. OG Doom is an interesting and unique blend of seemingly-contradictory elements that is able to come together cohesively due to its extremely abstract, low-fi presentation. While I hardly have much respect for the generic blue-collar sci-fi aesthetic Doom 3 or even Doom 2016 seemed to be going for, at least its thematically consistent. Doom Eternal though...

 

Why in this fathomlessly vast universe we call home would you introduce generic science-fantasy asethetics into a Doom game? The style is enough of a blight on the face of visual-medium science fiction as it is, but as the backdrop for an ultra-violent yet arcadey demon-killing simulator? What were they thinking. Actually, I'd better cease now, lest I descend into a massive rant about the aesthetic deficiencies of modern visual-medium sci-fi...

 

So, in short, I don't have much of an opinion on Doom's lore in general (Classic, Doom 3), and dislike what I know of nuDoom's intensely. In my opinion, games should lean on the inherent abstraction of the medium, rather than trying to imitate other mediums in any way, shape or form. Interactive media is, and has always been art. Games have nothing to prove, and (in general) nothing to gain via imitation of other mediums.

[Doomdude89]

4 hours ago, ebrl said:

There are plenty of reasons people still play DOOM and none of them are even remotely related to "lore". DOOM lore is kill dudes and get to the exit, anything beyond that is missing the point.

This guy gets it. 

"Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but its not that important" -John Carmack

[Zulk RS]

My take on Doom's Lore:

In all seriousness though, I think the classic games don't really care too much about the lore itself. I personally think the plot of Doom is really just there because something had to be there  to tell you what, where and why you're fighting but nothing more beyond that. It's expected to be there but it's not important.

 

[xdarkmasterx]

Old doom is servicable. It's a little mysterious, a little humerous, but it's out of the way. This is about the player's journey into hell and back agian, not about some characters you don't give a crap about.

 

New doom, on the other hand, is the absolute pinnacle of meaningless fantasy garbage. It embodies all the worst excesses of modern video game storytelling.

 

The only time I think it was any good (or at least clever) was at the very beginning of 2016, where doomguy punches the villain's monitor, as if to say, "Fuck this, you're just here to kill shit, aren't you?" Of course, the delivery of the story henceforth degrades into a matter of finding PDA logs and sitting around in rooms while 40k and marvel rejects talk at you for an eternity, like just about every other game out there, but for a brief moment it had potential.

[BerserkerNoir]

In the old doom is like, just the setting and vague references about the UAC and the experimentation.
in the Newer Entries its fine, could had been better but its just complementary to the game.

[Archanhell]

DooM 1 and 2 does not have much lore, it stays relatively simple but good enough to make the game have its own depth

 

 

meanwhile doom 2016 and eternal are like 

 

[Teo Slayer]

1 minute ago, Archanhell said:

DooM 1 and 2 does not have much lore, it stays relatively simple but good enough to make the game have its own depth

 

 

meanwhile doom 2016 and eternal are like 

 

This describes the new Lore very well

[Ofisil]

5 hours ago, Gez said:

Basically my opinion is that to make Doom's premise work, you have to keep things vague and mysterious as much as possible. Notably, my number one cardinal sin is personifying the demons. To make them work as demons, they need to be unquestionably evil but also fully inscrutable. As soon as you have demons talking in English, you've jumped a shark. The second is explaining the demons. If you start making them like fully biological creatures, you no longer have demons but aliens.

 

It's perfectly acceptable to make a game about aliens who invade from another dimension, perhaps after some teleportation experiment on our side goes wrong, and which are able to recruit human traitors by promising them stuff because they've learned to speak human languages and so on. That's a premise that can perfectly work! It's fine, I have no problem with it. But if you do that, you don't end up with Doom, you end up with Half-Life. So if you want a Doom game, don't turn the demons into aliens. Don't turn them into people. Keep them supernatural. Keep them relentlessly hostile.

 

That's my main issue with new DOOM games, and especially Eternal. While I enjoyed parts of its storytelling, I don't like reading about EVERYTHING. Mystery in such games is always better, as it makes you fill the gaps with your imagination.

 

Also, yeah, keep demons as demons. Don't explain anything about them. They are just "rage, brutal, without mercy" and that's it.

 

[Nikku4211]

Doom has lore?

 

I thought it was just 'kill demon aliens from Mars' moons and say goodbye to your buddies who are now under the influence'.

 

Guess 3 really has changed everything. I've only played Doom 1 and 2, though.

 

This is going to be the most a series has climbed in terms of lore ever since GrubHub's delivery dance.

[KubaloBlackMT]

I think Doom Eternal's lore is pretty wacked out. Like everyone else said It's pretty much taken a big sniff of crack to come up with a story, and I'm sure this is the effect of trying to make the most awesomed dawesomness and not restricting yourself very much. I think we've given the developers to much freedoom to do whatever they want because of how good they've been to the community, and so the fans will suggest crack and the developers will make their own crack and everyone is ok with it because their image of the game is crack. Doom Eternal, to put it in an image understandable to most, is like that time you took all of your toys and mixed them together into one world, even if it didn't make sense.

 

And we let them do this, mind you. Because we gave them the engaging personality that to them says: "lets add everything that's fun and cool that we could possibly think of into Doom Eternal". You got He-Man, Warhammer 40K, Robocop, Terminator (Basically 80's incarnate pretty much), Guns n Swords, Ancient warriors that have sci-fi stuff, Big man with goofy costume, villain priests with saturday morning cartoon villain voices, action figure collectibles, cheat codes that are physical in-game because STUFF, Physical in-game music albums because STUFF, oh oh and the Doomslayer has a mancave room with guitars and comic books and guns and swords and 3d printed robots and Hugo Martin pizza and has the biggest gaming setup and a personal demon slaughtering martial arts training room like What in the absolute mother, father, sister, brother, and pet of a Fuck!