I never played the original DOOM games. I was a bit young for them at the time and had little to no understanding of what DOOM actually was. I heard snippets of stories from kids in my class who had older siblings or parents who had the game, from which I gathered that you shot monsters and that was pretty much it. I saw DOOM 64 at the rental stores multiple times, but I was much more too into Goldeneye to be bothered with it. When DOOM 3 was released I was more into the PS2 than anything on the PC and when I did get my first PC for gaming it was for World of Warcraft. Playing any of the DOOM games never really crossed my mind.

I actually had a very limited experience with first person shooters when I was a kid. My first real experience with the fast paced, "DOOM-like" fps was Unreal Tournament 2003. When I eventually settled into fps and other shooter games, I played Timesplitters 2, Black, and Half-Life, which eventually lead to Call of Duty and the plethora of third person cover based shooters to follow. I never played Quake, Duke Nukem, or Wolfenstein. At some point in my life, I saw those games as "old" and therefore no longer good games. The actual idea of NOT having a cover system and frantically moving around the environment seemed like a silly way to play a shooter game. Don't ask me how or why I came up with this belief. My only guess is I never actually played those games and being a dumb teenager I assumed what I knew was better than what I didn't know. I had no frame of reference for why those old shooters were so special and loved by so many and as the years went on and the plethora of cover mechanics, "follow the arrow" guides, and corridor tight shooters slowly became stale to me, I actually had reached a point where I thought of shooter campaigns as a sort of side mode to a games multiplayer, especially for the fps genre. Third person shooter campaigns still received my attention, but mostly the handful that were amazing technical showpieces or have good stories (Uncharted and Spec OPS The Line come to mind). But beyond that, I hardly thought about buying an fps for its campaign. They were all the same, boringly linear, non-challenging slogs. Then DOOM came.

Honestly, I was skeptical. Listening to the Bombcast, I was partially convinced it was just their nostalgia playing into their insane love for the game. Years of not thinking about buying an fps for its campaign had trained my brain to think this game couldn't be THAT good. I had even played Wolfenstein The New Order once it went on sale, and even that wasn't able to hold my attention for long. How could DOOM be any different? Even watching the Quick Look I still didn't see it. Brad walked into a room, the door locked behind him, and he had to kill all the enemies to get out with a fairly standard pistol and shotgun. Nothing special about it. But the praise for the game was overwhelming by fans, user reviews, and critics alike and since I have a wonderful habit of buying most popular games and not finishing half of them, I figured why can't I give DOOM a shot?

My feelings on the first two hours of the game were mixed. The story was goofy and well written for what was there. The pistol and shotgun felt good to shoot, but were fairly standard fps weapons. The enemies were fairly simple to dodge and were not overwhelming. The level design was cool, and the early secrets were fun to find. The game looked nice. But I was not enthralled yet. Thankfully I kept playing and as I did my feelings changed dramatically.

The goofy story turned into a hilarious, well written, surprisingly lore heavy endeavor that never dragged on too long or took itself seriously. The pistol turned into a fast moving charged headshot machine. The shotgun turned into a grenade launcher. From there the weapons only get better. The demons grow numerous, with tons of different behaviors and abilities. The level design is unfathomably good in both exploration and combat. In short the game exceeded all of my expectations and I beat it in five days, which is an extremely quick time for me. It made me wish I had known about these old fps games, that I had been old enough when they were released to play them and appreciate them for what they were. Or what they are, apparently. For being filled to the brim with old game design, DOOM feels new and fresh in a way shooter games haven't in years. Here are the multitude of ways DOOM became one of the best shooter campaigns I have ever played and what it does other shooters today don't.

1. There's No Time to Reload, So Don't

It’s surprising how this seems like a novel concept, but I can't recall any other game I've played where you don't reload any of your guns. It's also the first thing that stood out to me that DOOM was going to play differently. Reloading is so ingrained in my brain that I can't count the number of times I hit R on my keyboard to reload my weapon only to change my weapon mod instead. Normally games use reloading as their "tactical" element. Hey you have to decide the best time to shoot and the best time to reload! Which is fine, and a concept that certainly has worked well over the years, but when all you need to do in most games is sit behind cover to reload the entire concept becomes more of a nuisance than I even realized. I'm not saying every game should remove reloading, in many games it wouldn't make sense, but the way it lets you just unload your weapons on the demons in DOOM is incredibly satisfying. Most importantly, it allows you to constantly stay on the move, dodging and climbing all the while launching rockets into demon faces. And the ability to just never stop shooting is smartly balanced by the need for ammunition management.

2. Ammunition Scarcity Done Right

So, while you never have to reload you can and will run out of ammo for your guns frequently. Rather than replacing the annoyance of having to reload with the annoyance of having no ammo in a game that’s all about shooting guns, DOOM expertly forces the player to balance their ammunition through weapon strategy and decision making. By allowing your guns to run out

of ammo, you frequently need to change your weapon. You can have your favorite gun in DOOM all you want, but you better make sure you save it for the right enemies. Rotating weapons depending on the enemy composition is incredibly important and the lack of ammo forces you to learn to use all the weapons. Some weapons work much better against certain enemies than others, so there becomes an excellent back and forth of "do I save this gun for later or do I use it now?" They further complicate this decision making with the chainsaw. If you have enough fuel, you can instantly kill any enemy and get an amazingly satisfying explosion of all the ammo you need like a loot chest in Diablo. So do you decide to use the chainsaw on multiple smaller enemies to get as much ammo as possible? Or do you save it to one shot kill a Baron of Hell, but then risk being low on ammo later? Its all very smartly designed and encourages tactical weapon switching and good play without hindering the player in anyway. Of course, having to switch from your favorite weapon wouldn't be any fun if the other guns weren't fun to shoot.

3. All the Guns Are Fun

The guns are just plain fun to shoot. They feel heavy and powerful. When you rapidly fire missiles into a demon you can feel the thud of each one. Despite some of the weapons being big and bulky they never slow you down or really hinder your movement (with one exception).

On top of that most of the weapons have mods that you can find that completely change the way the weapon works in some incredibly satisfying ways. Turn your standard machine gun into a rapid firing missile launcher. Turn your plasma rifle into an area of effect stun bomb. Turn your shotgun into an explode on impact grenade launcher. Not only are you switching weapons constantly but you are switching weapon mods too, making almost every gun in the game three guns in one. It only increases your options and your strategy to take down the demons in the most efficient and satisfying ways possible.

4. Meaningful Challenges

In case you weren't already on board with trying different weapons, each mod has a challenge that unlocks its best modded feature. None of the challenges feel incredibly impossible, instead hitting the right spot of challenging to complete but entirely reasonable. Furthermore, each mission has three challenges attached to it, that often serve as make shift tutorials to the different ways your weapons work, or the many different glory kills you can perform, or encouraging you to hunt for secrets. These challenges unlock points to upgrade your weapon mods, so it’s a constant feed of completing challenges while using new guns which in turn unlocks you points to improve your guns. The whole system feels like a smart design choice rather than just slapping an experience bar on the screen and giving you a level.

5. Don't Hide For Health, Go Fight for It

Nearly every shooter these days has the same returning health system. Hide behind cover, don't get shot, your health comes back. Similar to reloading, it encourages, passive campy play. In DOOM you have to kill enemies to get your health back. About to die? well you better run out into the fray, frantically dodging shots while stunning enemies to get a glory kill and then get close enough to collect the health pickups. It adds an intensity to the combat that other games lack. I can't count the number of times I was low on health with five demons chasing after me only to land the perfect rocket, run forward and get a glory kill just in time to get some health back. Just enough health to survive a shot or two I might add. One glory kill will never give you your full health back, forcing you to stay on your toes until the last enemy falls.

6. Mobility That Works

Climbing and platforming in first person games has been very complicated over the years. At its best it feels janky, at its worst it’s a terrible mechanic. With all the movement required to run from enemies, and the expansiveness of the levels, DOOM needed a good mobility system to work. Thankfully climbing in DOOM feels enjoyable. Every time the DOOM Marine pulls himself up a ledge it felt good, which is the only real way I can describe it. The traversal feels natural, along with a double jump and a small air dash, you feel like you are in perfect control of where you are going at all times, even in the middle of the most intense fire fights. And all this mobility only serves the game even better for hiding collectibles, forcing the player to climb into places you normally wouldn't even think about reaching in other first person shooters.

7. Well Hidden Secrets

I largely ignore collectibles and secrets in most games because they are often much harder to find than the reward you get for finding them. Most of the time they don't even feel good to find, often hidden in seemingly random places with no context or clues to look there. Even worse,

unlocking concept art is generally the highlight of secret rewards. DOOM does two major things to alleviate this. First, you can upgrade your suit to show you where the collectibles are on the map. Any area of explorable terrain is also visible on the map. This makes finding the secrets easier because you know where to look, but they are so masterfully hidden that sometimes they still take minutes to find. Also, the game will often show you the secrets in the environment, such as on the other side of a wall you can't pass through) letting you know where the secret is but that you can't get it until later. It is an excellent tool to getting the player to want to find the secrets. Second, while the game will hand you a lot of upgrade points and weapon mods along the main path, about half of them are hidden in secret rooms. Rather than rewarding concept art for your secret hunting, DOOM rewards you with meaningful upgrades. In my experience, about 75% of the secrets were smartly hidden but not too difficult to find, while the other 25% were incredibly elaborate or expertly hidden, to the point where I'd say it’s worth looking them all up just to see how well designed the game is.

8. Aggressive AI

Since you are able to run around, jump and climb, and never reload, the demons can too. There is no hiding behind cover for the enemies, they come at you nonstop. But they don't feel like mindless, dumb creatures. The ranged enemies stay at range. They will often leap away from you, climb to high ground, or find a spot behind you to continue shooting you. The melee characters chase you aggressively. Many of them charge right at you and never stop pursuing, even if you climb up ledges. Yes, all the demons have mobility of some sort, and will run and leap after you across platforms, forcing you to engage or eventually get shot to pieces by the ranged attackers surrounding your perimeter. Each enemy has its own set of attacks and behaviors you learn that leads you to prioritizing killing them. You should probably take out the demon that summons more demons, before dealing with the laser beam shooters, but maybe you have more trouble with the charging Pinky Demons and would rather eliminate them before they come up behind you and spear you to death. Also, there never feels like a point where the demons leave you alone to catch your breath. Late in the game you will frequently encounter fights of 10-20 demons at once, all of which are aggressively attacking you. It keeps the action intense, and really brings together all of the other excellent systems the combat offers.

9. Expansive Levels

Probably the second most important piece to DOOM, along with the weapons, is the level design. Many shooters today are flat, straight paths. DOOM levels are all tremendously vertical. The games excellent mobility, fast pace, well-hidden secrets, and aggressive AI are all a product of the expansiveness and vertically each level has. You never feel trapped even though you are overwhelmed. You never feel enclosed or cornered. And you quickly learn to assume that you CAN go anywhere rather than you can't. Multiple paths and backtracking further show off how open and creative the levels are, allowing the player to have strategic battles, or explore and discover secrets. And the map is expertly designed to avoid you getting lost. When shooters are so linear, this type of open level design feels incredible in an fps and its really what makes all the other systems work together so well.

10. A “So Dumb its Good” Storyline I Can Get Behind

Despite the outrageous gore, heavy metal soundtrack, and demonic symbols DOOM actually doesn’t take itself seriously. Somehow they made future Mars colony harvesting energy from Hell with you playing as a demon prophesied DOOM slayer incredibly funny and interesting. I generally get tired of the "so dumb its great" theme a lot of games try to go for, but DOOM's story nails it. It is incredibly dumb but also awesome. When the deep dark demon voice is reading prophesized scripture of the DOOM marines destruction of the demons I was simultaneously thinking this is hilariously stupid that they did this and also I'm actually going to stand here and listen to all of it because I want to hear what it has to say. Not to mention the DOOM Marine constantly breaking and punching everything for seemingly no reason, the hologram spokesman spouting propaganda about how they are all doing great work, and the pages upon pages of codex on demon invasions and hell energy really got me wrapped up in such a ridiculous world. It’s the sort of dry humor I love. Not a single part of the game is in your face about any of it either, which is what I love the most.

So a game that uses many mechanics from 90s shooters is amazing. Well what happened to them in the first place? How did this boring, follow the leader corridor cover shooter style eclipse the fast paced, bullet dodging, power up wielding gameplay DOOM pioneered? Perhaps it’s just a case of things getting stale after so many years. Maybe with DOOM’s surprise success, other shooters will start following its “old is new” style. Then after ten years’ worth of DOOM clones spawn on us, we will grow tired of them and once again call on the cover shooters. As someone who has no experience with the old DOOM games, I know it’s more than just nostalgia. This style of game works and reminds me that shooters can do more as games. And it’s not just that DOOM was able to rebuild itself, it was able to recreate itself with a mixture of modern day gameplay systems. So perhaps what we are looking for isn’t just new, big ideas or old nostalgia grabs. It’s a combination of the old and the new, 20 + years of video game experience to build the DOOM we have today.