Doom is a 2016 first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the first major installment in the series since Doom 3 (2004). Players take the role of an unnamed space marine, known as the Doom Slayer, as he battles demonic forces from Hell that have been unleashed by the Union Aerospace Corporation within their energy-mining facility on Mars. The gameplay returns to a faster pace with more open-ended levels, closer to the first two games than the slower survival horror approach of Doom 3. It also features environment traversal, character upgrades, and the ability to perform executions known as "glory kills".
Doom was announced as Doom 4 in 2008, and that version underwent an extensive development cycle with different builds and designs before the game was restarted in 2011 and revealed as simply Doom in 2014. It was tested by customers who pre-ordered the 2014 Bethesda game Wolfenstein: The New Order and also by the general public. Mick Gordon composed the music for the game, with additional music contributed by Ben F. Carney, Chris Hite, and Chad Mossholder. The game also supports an online multiplayer component and a level editor known as "SnapMap", co-developed with Certain Affinity and Escalation Studios respectively. It was released worldwide on Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in May 2016. A port for Nintendo Switch was co-developed with Panic Button and released in November 2017, and a version for Google Stadia was released in August 2020.
Doom was well-received by critics and players. The single-player campaign, graphics, soundtrack, and gameplay received considerable praise, with reviewers crediting the game for recapturing the spirit of the classic Doom games and first-person shooters of the 1990s, whereas the multiplayer mode drew the most significant criticism. It was the second best-selling video game in North America and the UK a few weeks after its release and sold over 500,000 copies for PCs within the same time period. A sequel titled Doom Eternal was released in March 2020.
Plot[]
Doom takes place during the year 2149 in a research facility on Mars owned by the Union Aerospace Corporation, run by Dr. Samuel Hayden, a UAC scientist and the head of the facility, whose mind now inhabits an android body after having lost his original to brain cancer. Researchers at the UAC facility have attempted to draw energy from the newly discovered dimension of Hell, an alternative dimension inhabited by demons, in order to solve an energy crisis on Earth using the Argent Tower, which siphons energy (called "Argent Energy", thus the name of the tower) and allows travel to and from Hell. In addition to their energy harvesting work, Hayden organizes several expeditions into Hell, bringing back captive demons and artifacts for study. Among them is a sarcophagus containing the Doom Slayer (along with his armor, the Praetor Suit), whom the demons imprisoned after his earlier rampage through Hell.
The facility is overrun by demons after one of Hayden's researchers, Olivia Pierce, makes a pact with them and uses the Tower to open a portal to Hell. In desperation, Hayden releases the Doom Slayer from his sarcophagus to repel the demonic invasion and close the portal, before contacting him to offer to work together and resolve this problem "in a way that benefits them both." The Doom Slayer recovers his Praetor Suit and fights his way through the overrun facility, where he realigns a communications satellite dish to get a lay of the land, all guided by the self-aware AI VEGA, which controls the facility. After clearing out the facility core and preventing a meltdown, he pursues Pierce as he destroys the energy induction filters to Hayden's objections. He pursues Pierce up the tower, where she uses an Argent accumulator to open an explosive rift into Hell, destroying the Tower, and where the Slayer is sent back.
Fighting his way to a teleporter, the Doom Slayer returns to Mars and makes his way to a tram leading to Hayden. Hayden informs the Slayer of the Helix Stone, an artifact used to study and harness Hell's Argent energy. Entering Dr Olivia Pierce's Lazarus labs, he observes the Helix Stone, and from it he learns of the Well, where the portal is powered, and of the magical key-like blade, the Crucible. He makes another excursion into Hell after battling and defeating a contained Cyberdemon and activating its accumulator, and fights through a labyrinthine gauntlet to recover the Crucible from a trio of Hell Guards. Arriving at VEGA's facility in the frozen north, he destroys the AI (while also making a backup copy), using its power to enter the Well, where he uses the Crucible to destroy the portal's power source. Finally, he confronts Pierce, who is betrayed and transformed by the demons into the monstrous Spider Mastermind, and kills her.
Upon the Doom Slayer's return to Mars, Hayden confiscates the Crucible, which he plans to use in his research. Despite all that has happened, he insists that Earth is too desperate for energy to give up. To keep the Doom Slayer from interfering with his plans, Hayden teleports him to an undisclosed location, saying that they will meet again.