Doom is a 1993 first-person shooter game developed and published by id Software for MS-DOS. The player assumes the role of a space marine, later unofficially referred to as Doomguy, fighting through hordes of undead humans and invading demons.

The Story Behind Doom

The team planned to release Doom in the third quarter of 1993 but ultimately needed more time. Taylor said that the work gave him such a rush that he would pass out from the intensity. In 2004, John Carmack estimated that the total cost of development was less than US$1 million.

Instead, he gave software retailers the option to sell copies of the first Doom episode at any price, in hopes of motivating customers to buy the full game directly from id. Id began receiving calls from people interested in the game or angry that it had missed its planned release date, as anticipation built over the year. He believed that the mainstream press was uninterested in the game and bought only a single ad in any gaming magazine.

How Doom Plays

While the environment is shown in a 3D perspective, movement is restricted to a two-dimensional (2D) plane, a technique sometimes referred to as 2.5D graphics. The five difficulty levels adjust the number of enemies and amount of damage they do, with enemies moving and attacking faster than normal on the hardest difficulty setting. The player also encounters pits of toxic waste, ceilings that lower and crush objects, and locked doors requiring a collectable keycard or a remote switch.

Doom is a first-person shooter presented with 3D graphics. The monsters have simple behavior: they move toward their opponent if they see or hear them, and attack by biting, clawing, or using magic abilities such as fireballs. Two multiplayer modes are playable over a network: cooperative, in which two to four players team up to complete the main campaign, and deathmatch, in which two to four players compete to kill the other players' characters as many times as possible.

Why Players Still Load It Up

In 2000, Doom was ranked as the second-best game ever by GameSpot. The 3D graphics and art style earned glowing reviews as well; Computer Gaming World called the graphics remarkable, while Edge said that it "made serious advances in what people will expect of 3D graphics in future", surpassing not only prior games but games that had yet to be released. In April 1994, a few months after release, PC Gamer UK named it the third-best computer game of all time, claiming "Doom has already done more to establish the PC's arcade clout than any other title in gaming history," and PC Gamer US named it the best computer game of all time that August.

Dan Pinchbeck in Doom: Scarydarkfast (2013) noted the direct influence of Dooms design choices on those of first-person and third-person shooter games two decades later, as influenced by the games released in the intervening years. PC Zone called it the best arcade game ever, and it and Computer Gaming World praised the variety of monsters and weapons. White Wolfs reviewer found it addictive, claiming to miss sleep and appointments to continue playing.

Doom — Frequently Asked Questions