Franchise / Doom

Ripping and Tearing through Hell and back since 1993.

"Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon..."

— Terry Pratchett

Doom started off as a first person shooter created by id Software in 1993 as a followup to their earlier shooter Wolfenstein 3-D. The premise was relatively simple: the Union Aerospace Corporation, a giant MegaCorp, has been conducting experiments on interdimensional teleportation between a nuclear waste facility on Phobos, a moon of Mars, and another base on Deimos, Mars's other moon when something goes horribly wrong, leading Deimos to entirely disappear and the teleporter to open a portal to Hell. As in actual, demon-infested Hell. The player takes the role of "Doomguy", the last survivor of a squad of marines sent to clean up the mess.

It became a huge hit, codifying the First-Person Shooter genre and setting in motion a expansive franchise. It got a sequel the next year and another in 1997, followed by several alternate ports and variations of the first two. A fourth game rebooted the series to take a more traditional horror tone (and take place on Mars itself), while a fifth game quasi-un-rebooted it (setting the first three games as canon in Broad Strokes), and a sixth game taking a step further and flat-out Canon Welding everything together.

Adaptations in other media include a over-the-top comic book, a set of novels based on first game that diverged somewhat from the (admittedly limited) canon, another pair of novels based on the third game, a 2005 film starring The Rock and Karl Urban, a virtual pinball table and even a board game.

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List of Doom media

Main Series Games

• Doom (1993)
  • The Ultimate Doom (1995, a special edition retail re-release that adds a fourth episode, "Thy Flesh Consumed")
• Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994)
  • Master Levels for Doom II (1995 expansion, collection of Doom II maps by various creators contracted by id)
  • No Rest for the Living (2010, a bonus episode for Doom II previously exclusive to the Xbox 360 port prior its inclusion in Doom 3: BFG Edition)
• Final Doom (1996, expansion pack that roughly continues Doom's story with 2 megawads: The New Technology (TNT): Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment)
• Doom 64 (1997, sequel to I and II. Nintendo 64 exclusive until 2020 when it was ported to the Nintendo Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC. Also has fan port to original PC Doom engine.)
• Doom³ (2004, Continuity Reboot)
  • Resurrection of Evil (2005, an expansion pack sequel to Doom 3's story)
  • Doom 3: BFG Edition (2012, a remastered version of Doom 3. Includes The Ultimate Doom, Doom II, Resurrection of Evil, and an extra mini-campaign called The Lost Mission, a midquel comprised of previously-cut content)
• Doom (2016, another Continuity Reboot / Stealth Sequel to Doom I, II and 64)
• Doom Eternal (2020, direct sequel to Doom (2016))
  • Doom Eternal: The Ancient Gods (2020-2021, expansion pack sequel to Doom Eternal released as two DLC episodes)

Other Games

• Maximum Doom (1995, bonus content for the Master Levels of Doom II which contains over 3,000 amateur custom .wads for Doom, Doom II and Heretic)
• Doom RPG (2005, turn-based Mascot RPG for mobile phones utilizing Doom/Doom II art design and Doom 3 story elements; official website states it's supposed to be compatible with both continuities)
• Doom II RPG (2009, also a sequel to Wolfenstein RPG and uses the same engine)
• Doom Resurrection (2009, iOS rail shooter taking place during Doom 3)
• Doom Classic Complete (2012, a compilation of the original Doom games and their expansions for PlayStation 3 and Steam)
• Doom (Zen Studios), a virtual pinball adaptation of the 2016 game, available as part of Zen Studios' Bethesda Pinball pack for Zen Pinball
• Doom: VFR (2017, a VR spin-off of the 2016 Doom for HTC Vive and PlayStation VR)
• Mighty Doom (2023, a top-down shooter for iOS and Android loosely based on Doom (2016) and Eternal)

Comic Books

• Doom (1996)

Film

• Doom (2005)
• Doom: Annihilation (2019)

Literature

• Doom (1995)
  • Knee-Deep in the Dead
  • Hell on Earth
  • Infernal Sky
  • Endgame
• Two unofficial novels written by Hungarian author András Gáspár (1995)
  • A pokol kapui^Translation The Gates of Hell
  • Tisztítótűz^Translation Purgatory
• Two adaptations of Doom 3 were written by Matthew Costello
  • Worlds on Fire (2008)
  • Maelstorm (2009)

Tabletop Games

• Doom: The Boardgame (2004, with a rerelease in 2016)
• Doom Eternal: Assault on Armaros Station (2020)

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Please don't leave, there's more demons to toast!