Doom is a 2016 first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game is the first major installment in the Doom series since 2004's Doom 3 and is a reboot of the franchise. It was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, 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 Stadia was released in August 2020. Players take the role of an ancient warrior, known colloquially as the Doom Slayer, as he battles demonic forces within an energy-mining facility on Mars and in Hell.
The game 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 re-revealed as simply Doom in 2014. It was tested by customers who pre-ordered the 2014 MachineGames game Wolfenstein: The New Order and the general public. Mick Gordon composed the music, with contributions by Richard Devine. The game also has an online multiplayer component and a level editor known as "SnapMap", co-developed with Certain Affinity and Escalation Studios respectively.
Doom was well received by critics and players. The single-player campaign, graphics, soundtrack, and gameplay received considerable praise, whereas the multiplayer mode drew significant criticism. It was the second best-selling video game in North America and the United Kingdom in the week of its release and sold over 500,000 copies for PCs by the end of May 2016. A sequel, Doom Eternal, was released in March 2020. A prequel, Doom: The Dark Ages, was released in May 2025.
Gameplay
Doom is a first-person shooter. Gameplay consists of fast movement and frenetic combat against aggressive and mobile opponents, as well as exploration of the game's environments via double-jumps and ledge climbing. To progress through the game, the player wields an arsenal of weapons influenced by those of Doom and Doom II, such as a chainsaw and the BFG 9000, against demonic opponents also influenced by the original Doom games. Weapons do not need to be reloaded and can be augmented with various mods obtained during the campaign.
To replenish their resources, the player must pick up items or kill enemies. Players may recover health by using the "Glory Kill" mechanic, in which sufficiently damaged enemies enter a stunned state and may be killed by the player in a short melee animation. Ammunition can be replenished by using the chainsaw on an enemy, which instantly kills them if there is enough fuel in the chainsaw.
The single-player campaign has 13 levels, which typically have multiple pathways and open areas for players to explore and find collectibles, secrets, and upgrades to their equipment. Other pickups include Doomguy figurines and data files that expand on the setting and story. Throughout the campaign are Easter egg references to Commander Keen, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 4, Terminator 2, and the preceding Doom games. Each level contains a hidden lever which opens an area extracted from a classic level in the original games. An arcade mode in which all upgrades in the single-player campaign are unlocked from the beginning of the game was added on October 20, 2016.
Multiplayer Doom supports an online multiplayer mode. Gamemodes include a basic Team Deathmatch and variations thereof called Freeze Tag, in which defeated players are frozen in ice and may be revived by teammates, and Soul Harvest, in which players must pick up "souls" dropped by slain opponents; Warpath, a variation of King of the Hill in which the hill moves around the map; Clan Arena, a team-based last man standing mode; and Domination, in which teams must capture and hold three locations. Players use a loadout consisting of two weapons chosen from an arsenal of weapons that may include weapons unique to the multiplayer mode. During matches, players may obtain "hack modules", one-use power-ups that convey information to the player, such as the time until other power-ups respawn. They may also obtain "runes" that temporarily transform them into demons. Playable demons include the Revenant, Baron of Hell, and Mancubus, also featured in the single-player campaign, and the Prowler and Harvester, which are not.
SnapMap Doom includes a level creation tool called SnapMap which allows players to create and edit maps. Using in-game assets, players can create single-player levels and co-operative or competitive multiplayer maps. Players can place enemies into their maps, with the exception of the campaign's bosses, and modify their artificial intelligence and stats. Alternatively, SnapMap can automatically generate enemies for player-made maps with the AI conductor feature. Players can share their completed maps with other players, who can rate and make derivatives of their map.
Synopsis Doom takes place on Mars in 2149, where the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC) operates a facility to exploit an energy seeping from Hell, an alternate dimension populated by hostile lifeforms known as demons. To solve an energy crisis on Earth, the UAC constructed the Argent Tower to extract and refine raw Hell energy into Argent energy, which deteriorates the physical and mental health of the facility's staff, and allowed transit to and from Hell. After discovering that Argent energy had properties that defied their understanding of physics, the UAC began occult research into Argent energy and Hell, and the demons, who its staff began to worship and cybernetically modify.
The facility is run by Samuel Hayden, a UAC scientist who transferred his consciousness to an android body after being afflicted with terminal brain cancer during the construction of the Argent Tower. In addition to directing the energy extraction and refining process, Hayden organizes expeditions into Hell to retrieve captive demons and artifacts for study. Among them is a sarcophagus containing the player character, a being they call the Doom Slayer and fear immensely, along with his armor, the Praetor Suit. Assisting Hayden is VEGA, a self-aware artificial intelligence that controls and monitors the facility. Leading the UAC's research into biomechanics is Olivia Pierce, a protege of Hayden's who developed crippling scoliosis while working on Mars and makes a pact with the demons to open a portal between Mars and Hell and allow the demons to conquer humanity.
Plot At an undetermined time, Pierce opens the portal for the demons, who overrun the facility and kill almost all of its staff. To repel them, Hayden awakens the Slayer, who recovers his armor and initially ignores Hayden's entreaties to work together. Denied information unless he agrees to help Hayden, the Slayer acquiesces and begins to be guided by VEGA. After clearing out the facility core and preventing a meltdown in its foundry, the Slayer pursues Pierce up the tower, along the way destroying infrastructure critical to the refinement of Argent energy despite Hayden's protests. At the top of the tower, Pierce opens an explosive rift into Hell using a device called an Argent accumulator, destroying the Tower and sending the Slayer back to Hell.
In Hell, the Slayer fights his way to the tomb in which he was imprisoned and reaches a teleporter back to Mars. The Slayer makes his way to Hayden's office, where Hayden installs a teleporting device in the Praetor Suit for more reliable teleportation. Hayden also tells the Slayer of the Helix Stone, an artifact used to study and harness Argent energy, which is being housed in Pierce's office in the Lazarus Labs. Entering the Lazarus Labs, the Slayer observes the Helix Stone and learns of the Well, where the portal is powered, and of the Crucible, a magical blade. To reach the Well, he makes another excursion into Hell with the Argent accumulator within the Cyberdemon, a massive and cybernetically modified demon. After killing the Cyberdemon, the Slayer fights through a labyrinthine gauntlet and three more powerful demons to recover the Crucible.
Hayden teleports the Slayer to a facility in the frozen north of Mars that houses VEGA's core, which he plans to use to trigger an explosion powerful enough to send the Slayer to the Well. The Slayer triggers a meltdown of the core, but makes a backup copy of VEGA before the explosion. Entering the Well, the Slayer uses the Crucible to destroy the portal's power source and confronts Pierce, who is betrayed and transformed by the demons into the Spider Mastermind. Upon killing the Spider Mastermind, the Slayer is teleported back to Mars by Hayden, who tells the Slayer he has won and stopped the invasion. Hayden confiscates the Crucible to continue his research into Argent energy. To keep the Slayer from interfering with his plans, Hayden teleports him to an undisclosed location.
Development
As Doom 4 After releasing Doom 3 in 2004, id Software began working on a new intellectual property, Rage, and unsuccessfully sought to license the Doom franchise to another developer as it had with Wolfenstein. In 2007, however, id began development of Doom 4. The studio, which had 19 employees at the time of Doom 3s release, struggled to simultaneously develop Rage and Doom 4. Development of Doom was first revealed via job listings on id's website on May 7, 2008, for a project titled Doom 4. On June 23, 2009, ZeniMax Media, parent company of Bethesda Softworks, acquired id and announced that Bethesda would publish its future games. According to id creative director Tim Willits, the partnership allowed the company to have two teams, each having a project in parallel development. Asked in April 2009 about whether Doom 4 would be a sequel to Doom 3 or a reboot, id CEO Todd Hollenshead stated that it was neither.
Doom 4 was intended to feature a story written by British science fiction writer Graham Joyce. The game was going to be set on Earth and was described as a "new take" on Doom II (subtitled Hell on Earth). In a 2016 video documentary by Noclip about the game's development, Doom creative director Hugo Martin described Doom 4 as being "about the global impact of a Hellish invasion" and compared it to the 1997 film Contact. The game was influenced by the Call of Duty series of first-person shooters, featuring passive health regeneration, an emphasis on using cover to protect the player character, and scripted cinematics; developers and fans derided the project as "Call of Doom". In 2011, Rage was released to mixed reception. id and Bethesda, feeling that Doom 4 was out of touch with the original games, decided to restart development.
On April 3, 2013, Kotaku published an exposé that described Doom 4 as being trapped in "development hell" and allegedly mismanaged. Bethesda's vice president of marketing, Pete Hines, acknowledged difficulty in the development of Doom 4 that same day. In an August 2013 interview with IGN, Willits said that the pre-2011 Doom 4 "had a bit of schizophrenia, a little bit of an identity crisis." Marty Stratton, Dooms director, described the period between 2011 and 2013 as a "rolling reboot". This period contained numerous departures from id such as Hollenshead and company co-founder John Carmack. In an interview by Nathan Grayson of Rock, Paper, Shotgun on August 6, 2013, Willits stated that there was no publicly available timeline for updates on Doom 4.
As Doom