Doom: The Next Chapter

Sometimes it seems hard to believe that the original Doom game was published by id Software over two decades ago. Yes, it’s been that long – the hugely popular first person shooter, featuring a space marine fighting demonic forces in a creepy research facility on Mars, reached the legal age to drink in the US last year.

Somehow I expected id to release an anniversary edition in the last few days, but it unfortunately did not happen. Instead we got the news about the next level of horror and gore to invade the red planet: id Software and Bethesda plan to release a new Doom game (most likely a new reboot of the franchise) on the id Tech 6 engine.

Let us take a look at the two decades of Doom on our PCs and consoles, to resurrect some good memories.

The first Doom game – it was called Doom, plain and simple – was released in 1993 as a shareware / mail order game. For the new generation this already seems unimaginable – they mostly know “mail” as a means for some companies to deliver their invoices to our mailboxes. But back then the internet was far from being the universally available file transfer tool of today. The original Doom (let’s just call it Doom 1) had three episodes with nine levels each. A fourth episode was released with Ultimate Doom, an upgraded version of the game, in 1995 – this version was finally available in retail.

Doom II was released by id in 1994 for MS DOS (another thing younger generations have no idea about – FYI, it is similar to the console mode in Windows 8) and in 1995 for Macintosh (the ancestor of the iMac). This game was not shareware anymore – it was released through the retail channels, followed by its Master Levels for Doom II expansion launched by id a year later. This was the version of the game that made it on platforms other than the PC – it was released for GameBoy Advance in 2002, the Tapwave Zodiac (a portable console sold by Palm) in 2004 and Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade in 2010.

For the next Doom game fans had to wait almost one decade, having to make do with the original game with various modifications (the one I played the most was GLDoom, an OpenGL version of the game that  introduced 3D mouse look and jumping, and looked awesome on my 3dfx Voodoo). Doom 3 was released in 2004 (over a decade ago, mind you). The game was a reboot of the original, completely disregarding the previous editions. As you can imagine, it sold over three million copies. A movie and a series of novels, as well as an expansion pack and the BFG Edition followed.

Now it’s time for evil to be resurrected again – along with the Doom franchise. Hopefully the game does not get trapped in “development hell,” just like Duke Nukem Forever did, and it won’t keep us to just play slots at red flush online casino for too long.