Trivia / Doom (2016)

• Approval of God: The official Twitter account linked this video of gameplay done to Jump Up Super Star.
• Ascended Fanfic: The game features the ability to shoot enemies in the head for extra damage, and Ultra-Nightmare difficulty^note where dying returns you to the start of the game like that of the Brutal Doom mod.^note Doom 2016's Glory Kill system also appears to be lifted from Brutal Doom, but the mechanic already existed in builds of Doom 4 dating back to 2008, preceding Brutal Doom by two years. Mods to upgrade and improve weapons are hidden around the levels, similar to DRL. Argent Energy, Earth's reliance on it as a clean and bountiful source, and the UAC harvesting it leading into the demon invasion is extremely similar to the lore in Hideous Destructor.
  • Gone full-circle for Brutal Doom, since there's a mutator that replaces the mod's weapons with the ones from this game.
• B-Team Sequel: The is the first Doom game to be developed after the departures of id co-founders John and Adrian Carmack (no relation), meaning almost the entire Doom (1993) team had no involvement. The only exceptions are "id Mom" Donna Jackson (who, as the studio's office manager, has only a limited role in game development) and artist Kevin Cloud (who only worked on the SnapMap mode for 2016, leaving the main game to the newer blood). ^note John Carmack was still at the studio when work began on the original "Doom 4" version of the game, but he left in 2013, before the design overhaul took place.
• Cut Song: A remix of the classic Doom's ''Untitled'', named Hell Keep was played during Bethesda's single-player stream and the Behind the Music interview, but it is not present in the game nor the official soundtrack.
• Development Gag:
  • The music for the Hell Guard boss fight is a remixed version of the music that played during the Hell gameplay in the E3 2015 debut.
  • Using the severed body parts of unfortunate personnel to access restricted areas was a early idea for the original Doom that was scrapped, as seen in this screen of a "Captain's Hand" item◊ from an alpha build of Doom.
  • Samuel Hayden may have been named after General Hayden, a scrapped character in Doom 3 who was supposed to a Decoy Antagonist to Dr. Bertruger.
• Defictionalization: Unsurprisingly, the Doom Slayer collectible dolls from the campaign were actually produced. There are also "Patriotguy" and "Pinkguy" variants (the versions you can collect on the destroyed Argent Facility map and Advanced Research Complex map, respectively).
• Fandom Nod: The name of the Pinky demon. The creature was simply called "Demon" in the original Doom and gained the Fan Nickname "pinky" to distinguish it from all the other demons.
• Killer App: The Nintendo Switch port, which released soon after the console's launch, is cited by many Switch owners as the game that convinced them the Switch was something special after the disastrous Wii U. The other major notable third party port at the time, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, was six years old and so people expected it to run well. But for DOOM to run well, even with the technical cuts and shortcuts, proved the Switch was a much more viable competitor in the console market than its predecessor.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The game has a special Collector's Edition which comes with a 12-inch tall statue of a Revenant, a steelbook for the game and nine holographic cards of certain enemies in the game.
• Meme Acknowledgment: This video of the original soundtrack, uploaded by Bethesda themselves, includes a brief appearance by the "Doot Revenant".
• Not Screened for Critics: Bethesda refused to send review copies out prior to the game's release, claiming that the online servers would not be activated before the release day. This provoked ire among critics such as TotalBiscuit, who didn't believe it a sufficient reason to withhold review copies. Both aforementioned reviewers went on to declare very positive impressions of the game, and with the large number of positive reviews given upon the game's release, this did not seem to have much impact on critical reception.
• Preview Piggybacking: Preorders for Wolfenstein: The New Order came with codes for the beta of DOOM. Coming full-circle, preorders for DOOM included a free copy of Wolfenstein: The Old Blood.
• Promoted Fanboy: Before being hired to craft the soundtrack to this game, Mick Gordon did DOOM music remixes.
• Screwed by the Network: Bethesda, either having no confidence in the single-player or in a poor attempt to position the game as a competitor to the likes of Halo and Call of Duty, chose in their previews to heavily emphasize a multiplayer mode that's been regularly called out by fans and critics alike as the weakest part of the game, instead of the single-player campaign which has been almost universally praised. Some think that the negative reaction to the multiplayer open beta is why Bethesda chose to withhold review copies, and many have called into question why they had such little faith in the single-player side of the game.
• Trolling Creator: In a dig against the moral panic against the original Doom, composer Mick Gordon hid the phrase "Jesus loves you" played backwards in the soundtrack.
• Troubled Production: Was first announced in 2008, but repeatedly hit delays due to id Software being bought out by Zenimax, as well as development resources being channeled into Rage (2011). As the years went on, development suffered a number of restarts and employees leaving, with poor management and direction being blamed for the lack of progress. Id and Zenimax eventually rebooted the project entirely, and the game was finally shown to a tightly controlled private audience at Quakecon 2014, officially shown to the public at E3 2015, and finally released on May 13, 2016.
• What Could Have Been: As you might expect from the game's troubled development, it went through many, many changes before its release.
  • At one point sci-fi author Graham Joyce was brought in to pen a detailed plot for the game, and the developers once hinted that the game would be a sequel to Doom 3 set on Earth. The former never went anywhere and the latter has since proven to not be the case.
  • Another version of the game nicknamed Call of Doom was canned as Bethesda felt it was too derivative and generic. A number of screenshots and concept art leaked from this version of the game, making it the most well-known of the various shifts the game took while in development.
  • Mick Gordon revealed that when he was hired to compose the soundtrack, he was given free reign by id to do as he wanted, but with only one restriction: no heavy metal. After 6 to 9 months of composing purely electronic music, he decided to add some guitars to the mix and eventually convinced the developers to include more metal into the game.
  • Text strings found in the Alpha and Beta indicate, among other things, that the Cyberdemon and Summoner would have been available to use in Snapmap and the Praetor Suit being unlocked for multiplayer usage by completing the single-player mode on Nightmare. The BFG-9000 also had a number of weapon mods listed for it, all of which were cut. And the Spider Mastermind was to show up halfway through the game instead of being the Final Boss, with Olivia turning into something completely different for the final battle. The Praetor Suit would eventually be patched into multiplayer, instead with the requirement to hit Echelon 11 in that mode.
  • Multiplayer bots were also discovered and activated by modders in the Alpha and Closed Beta, but they seem to have been completely removed in the final game, though updates have since added them back in. There's also references to a number of multiplayer elements that aren't in the final game, such as free-for-all Deathmatch and "Classic" game modes and weapons such as a Nailgun and a Grenade Launcher, some of which were placed back into the game in updates. The "Prowler" demon was planned for single-player mode, but was cut early on and ended up being repurposed for multiplayer.
  • The Bringers of Doom panel at Quakecon 2016 revealed a number of things that didn't make the final game. Dr. Samuel Hayden was originally a fully human character named Spencer, who acted as a much more humorous Mission Control NPC. Echoes had to be activated by bots in the area, and were longer and had much more dialogue. These were quickly dumped for a minimalist, Show, Don't Tell approach to the story.
  • The first gameplay trailer implies that the Doom Slayer was meant to be a normal Space Marine, with the helmet bearing "F-90" mark and the lack of the arcane rune that was stamped on the helmet.

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