How the Original Doom Was Ahead of its Time

The release of Legacy of Rust, the first expansion for Doom II in over a decade, has given me reason to revisit one of my favorite first person shooters, indeed perhaps the definitive FPS, for a bloody explosion of nostalgia. Legacy is part of the Doom + Doom II release available on Steam since August.

With an FPS of our own waiting amongst Little Raucous’ planned projects, this trip down memory lane has doubled as valuable design planning. For the sharp-eyed, design-minded gamer, it really can’t be overstated just how far ahead of its time Doom was, not just because of its rendering technology, but because of the care taken in its creation. Like many video games, there’s far more going on beneath the hood than might originally meet the eye. I highly recommend the Youtube videos of Decino on this subject.

Doom was birthed in the days of video games’ early adolescence, when available memory, processing power, and networking speed remained at a premium. Developers’ ability to create massive maps, endless details, smooth multiplayer experiences, or even just three-dimensional objects was severely constrained. They couldn’t even stack floors or allow the player to shoot up or down. The result was a classic expression of the term “art from adversity” - developers having to get extremely creative to find workarounds to technological limitations. My favorite example is Doom’s map design philosophy, the tight, recursive, occasionally almost origami-like layouts that epitomize the phrase “use the whole buffalo” and make you never even miss, or even notice, the third dimension.

But even cooler for me has always been just the sheer attention to detail in this old FPS stalwart, the developers stopping to spend time on little things that make a big difference in user experience:

-The intricacies of the monster reaction system, each given unique personality;

-The monster projectile design, built around forcing the player to stay mobile;

-The synthesis of map design and monster abilities to create unique problems in specific spots;

-The prominent role of randomness in everything from regulating enemy disintegration chances, to shaking up enemy damage to keep you from scheming encounters excessively, to de-syncing the way enemies move and vocalize;

-Monster infighting, an absorbing and often hilarious depth feature and ammo-saver.

Doom is a game in which you can’t even crouch or jump, yet it remains an enduring touchstone in gaming culture. It sports an obsessed speedrunning community that is solving original design flaws and accomplishing new in-game challenges thirty years after its release. It has even achieved escape velocity into popular culture, consistently ranking amongst the most well-known video games (possibly because of its affect upon workplace productivity throughout the 90s) and earning a spot in a Family Guy montage.

In regards to Legacy of Rust, I’m happy to say that the new expansion is everything one would expect from the series. It retains the hallmarks of its venerable ancestor, such as deviously efficient map design and puzzle philosophy, while introducing new elements that make the player think. The new Calamity Blade god-weapon and particularly the Incinerator flamethrower (replacing the BFG and plasma rifle respectively for this outing) are visceral and addictive pleasures while demanding correct usage and situational judgment; even better, each is given a map dedicated to learning and using it. The new enemies - alas, they’re a bit derivative, largely resurrections of unused sprites or reworks of old ones (though there’s actually lots of that in even the original game). The exceptions are the unsetting Banshee, a kamikaze entity which makes up for being the only newcomer to deviate somewhat from the Doom flavor (still deciding how much) by inflicting an extreme damage toll (it does get its own portal as a giveaway of its presence) and the towering Vassago demon. I found the Vassago rather underwhelming both visually and aurally, even unintentionally…cute? But it offers a fresh gameplay twist by throwing fire, which lands and does DoT splash damage, forcing the player into high situational awareness.

My only other disappointment is that the second episode’s final installments revert to slaughter maps, which do not interest me personally, but I quibble. With several of the maps destined to become instant classics and a lack of an urgent need to remake the wheel, Legacy of Rust remains firmly grounded in the claustrophobic hell formula that Doom first brought us. It remains a testament to good game design that a Doom game can take a limited number of elements and mix them into ever-newer situations. (Chip’s Challenge is another favorite of mine in that vein.)

Doom has served as a formative for my understanding of…well, a lot of things in terms of game design. It’s good to see it bearing the game equivalent of Old Man Strength. Again, I recommend Decino’s videos if you’re ever looking at a nascent FPS and wondering just how deep you should go.