Is DOOM 3 Cannon in the Doom Universe?? D:

[Albertoni]

I'd just like to remind y'all are discussion the story of a game series where Carmack said "Story in a game is like story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but its not that important." I really don't think nobody really thought about anything else but the game they were making and it's direct prequel in deciding the story, and if they did, they abandoned that line.

 

Doom 2 clearly follows Doom 1. RoE clearly follows Doom 3. Eternal follows 2016. Everything else is speculation at best, other than the multiverse thingy mentioned in Eternal, which helps explain things but doesn't really make a timeline possible.

 

"Oh but this game references this thing so that must mean-" No it doesn't. I'd be willing to wager money that all instances of those were people trying to reference something as fan-service instead of creating story connections. Because if we take those things to mean story connections, then Max Payne, Hitman and Red Faction also are in the Doom universe, because Doom Eternal has a Dopefish and those games also have one. I mean, that'd be quite cool, don't get me wrong, but you also see what I'm getting at.

[UnclePhil]

I'm in the camp of "It's Doom, it's all Doom, it's all awesome and I love it, but I don't think about it too hard." I take all of the games to exist in their own continuity except where specified. I feel like when I was younger it was important to me for sequels to be linked in some concrete way but today I just enjoy each for what it is and I give the creators the space to craft each experience to whatever their vision is.

 

That said, Doom 1/2/Final had minimal fluff; Doom 3 had a fluff that was pretty sweet as far as I'm concerned; Doom2016 had fluff that was a little less to my liking, and Doom Eternal has fluff that to me has gone completely off the rails into some tryhard-epic JRPG territory.

 

But they all have something to love. As I said to my partner last week as we binged Netflix and I replayed Doom3 on a laptop, "Everyone knows Doom 3 is the darkest Doom." And she rolled her eyes, and I blasted an Imp with a shotgun, and all was well. Because it's really all very silly at the end of the day but I can't help loving it.

[Doomkid]

Just as a general response, not at anyone in particular: If the story doesn't matter in Doom games - which itself is a completely subjective claim - why do they all have anywhere between "a few pages" and "a small novel" worth of story? If the story didn't matter, then why was the effort made to explicitly include it? (Carmack said that "story porn" quote a whopping 20 years ago, so he probably changed his mind since then, if Rage or even Doom 3 are anything to go by..)

 

A story, even a basic one, does wonders to add a sense of progression imo. Rather than going nowhere, you're going "somewhere".

 

Also Doom64 following the end of Doom 2 isn't even a topic of debate, the "story blurbs" throughout the game and the manual make it crystal clear that you're objectively the same character as in Doom 1 and 2. Same goes for 2016/Eternal following Doom64.. it's fine if you don't think story is important, that's all a matter of personal taste, but when it comes to what's stated by the stories in the games themselves, Doom 1, 2, 64, 2016 and Eternal are objectively linked and share the protagonist. Unless the story that is provided by the games themselves is somehow "wrong"... which would be pretty damn weird!

[Beginner]

5 hours ago, Doomkid said:

If the story doesn't matter in Doom games - which itself is a completely subjective claim - why do they all have anywhere between "a few pages" and "a small novel" worth of story? If the story didn't matter, then why was the effort made to explicitly include it?

Because in Doom's case it's exactly like the quote describes it: the story is there (as basic as it is) but ultimately what keeps player entertained is the process of exploring vaguely related to each other levels, accompanied with decent music, sound and graphics. Carmack isn't even 100% wrong with his quote: there's more to %storytellingmedianame% than just the story. You're more likely to get away with some excuse plot if you can make up for it with something else that can keep people entertained. That doesn't mean you can ignore it completely: really good story will most likely elevate the experience and unentertainingly horrible one will drag it down.

[printz]

id didn't try at all to build a story. Sorry. They did try something vaguely original with Doom 1, what with Phobos and Deimos having moon bases, in a sci-fi setting with fantastic elements. But once you learn basic astrophysics, it all collapses (Phobos and Deimos are merely big rocks without as much as gravity), especially when you find out id just reused common Earthly art for everything. After that, you know id just didn't care for much besides making fun games. Doom 2 continues with the hell invasion on Earth, but the story is even blurrier. It has large scale events which are just barely brushed off, such as "humanity being hostage" and a star ship being able to rescue them all (???). After that there's Final DOOM, made by third parties but officialized by id. Even more flimsy stories barely sustained by anything inside the game.

 

Then came Doom 3, which was hyped as an excellent horror game in every department, including story. For that, they contracted a real writer. He did a fairly good job, but he was also probably limited by management to make it simplistic anyway (what with how Betruger turned up). The big problem? Doom 3 was designed as a reboot, which means that the Doom and Doom 2 stories got thrown into the bin, with the Phobos, Deimos installations, and the hell on Earth progress discarded. We no longer know what humanity did after the Doom 2 events...

 

Then again came Doom 2016. Again, a reboot, throwing all the progress from Doom 3 to the bin this time. It could have been much more interesting if they kept the Doom 3 history relevant, since there would have been no contradictions! But id just didn't care. It's all about dumb shooting demons and survival. Some people like this simplicity, but given my experience with other game franchises, I don't consider it necessary to sacrifice story continuity for it. I'm pretty sure that simple stories like in Doom 1 costed nothing, so it would have costed nothing to consider "this happened after the Doom 3 events, UAC hired new executives for this new Argent project etc.". Didn't they actually hire a writer anyway, even for Doom 2016, or was that for the cancelled "Doom 4" game? The game surely has its own story, I guess it's being continued in Doom Eternal, which I haven't finished yet...

 

So in short, no game is canon because there's no canon. Instead, every Doom iteration (save for Doom 2) went on and threw their own interpretation instead of the previous one. What they all have in common, because the alternative is utter failure (like the old Doom movie or the novels, both panned), is the futuristic "real demons" combat theme.

[mrthejoshmon]

On 9/16/2021 at 3:06 PM, Vaeros said:

Doom 64 was originally intended to be reboot or just a different interpretation from the originals. including the cancelled ''Absolution'' sequel.

 

Most curious, I have never heard this before, where or what was your source for this claim? Genuine curiosity, I've never heard this claim before.

 

On 9/16/2021 at 3:06 PM, Vaeros said:

I just prefer ignore Eternal's lore, it's pure bethesda's fanfiction bullshit.

If you're going to discard established lore in the discussion about established lore then what's the point? It's kinda self defeating, little bit silly really.

 

12 hours ago, Vaeros said:

You're quoting that from the manual but It could be just refering to the player (You) having experience with the original games maybe? Still makes no sense since it used to be an N64 exclusive port and artistically different from the originals, I don't think old ID Software or Midway even cared about the game having an actual backstory anyway.

Quote

Your fatigue was enormous, the price for encountering pure evil. Hell was a place no mortal was meant to experience. Stupid military doctors: their tests and treatments, were of little help. In the end, what did it matter - it was all classified and sealed. The nightmares continued. Demons, so many Demons; relentless, pouring through.

Definitely referring to "you" as a character in the first person, not a player.

They also did this in the original stories, it's basic character setup to get the player into a role or mindset, seeing as though they were massive D&D fans at Id it only makes sense that all their story writing is in universe role play.

 

And you say they didn't really care but if that were true it wouldn't be there, also they clearly enjoyed themselves writing Doom 64 and it shows through the flavour text it gives.

[Quasar]

The whole "they don't care" and that horrible old "porn tape" quote from John Carmack get trotted out to try to shut down any and all discussion about the Doom series plot in every one of these threads, it's tiresome. We get it, you don't personally care. Go back to whatever else you do care about then and leave the discussion alone. When it gets to the point of people actively denying facts to try to hold up their narrative it's gone too far, such as claiming Doom 64 isn't a sequel to Doom II or that Doom Eternal doesn't in fact establish a connection to the original series. Whether or not you like the story is irrelevant to what its creators intended, folks - I mean, I really kind of hate where Eternal goes in its DLCs but I don't try to claim that, in fact, Doomguy is not Doomguy because of it.

[Vaeros]

8 hours ago, Quasar said:

The whole "they don't care" and that horrible old "porn tape" quote from John Carmack get trotted out to try to shut down any and all discussion about the Doom series plot in every one of these threads, it's tiresome. We get it, you don't personally care. Go back to whatever else you do care about then and leave the discussion alone. 

I'm not -literally- saying that but whatever bro. Also, you need to calm down a bit. I was just sharing some of my thoughts and my reasons why it was not a sequel. whatever info you found to prove your point is okay so not big deal, you don't have to agree with me or otherwise. Anyway, i'm not going to say anything else so this discussion is over.

[printz]

I wasn't saying that I don't care, in fact I care, because I wish it were better. It's just based on how I see they developed their stories, they didn't keep enough continuity to make it clear what's canon. I'm also bitter because I suspect they decided to let precisely Doom 3 out, since it has the more complex plot than in Doom and Doom 2.

[Arl]

The eternal struggle between categorization and abstraction...