Characters / Doom (2016): The Doom Slayer

Doom (2016) and Doom Eternal Main Character Index
The Doom Slayer | Demons | UAC and ARC | Maykrs and Argenta

The Doom Slayer

Voiced by: Matthew Watterson (Eternal), Jason Kelley (The Ancient Gods - Part Two)

The only thing they fear... is you.

^{Click here to see his 2016 appearance} 

"In the first age, in the first battle, when the shadows first lengthened, one stood. Burned by the embers of Armageddon, his soul blistered by the fires of Hell and tainted beyond ascension, he chose the path of perpetual torment. In his ravenous hatred, he found no peace, and with boiling blood, he scoured the Umbral Plains, seeking vengeance against the dark lords who had wronged him. He wore the crown of the Night Sentinels, and those who tasted the bite of his sword named him... the Doom Slayer."

— Slayer's Testament I, Doom (2016)

A silent, unnamed Space Marine who awakens laying inside a stone sarcophagus on a UAC base on Mars that has literally gone to Hell. After smashing in a zombie's head with his bare hands and reclaiming his Powered Armor from another nearby coffin, the marine proceeds to butcher his way through an army of demons to put an end to the madness.

While his past is initially shrouded in mystery, one clear thing is that he's been murdering his way through the legions of Doom for seemingly several eons, to the point that all of Hell now calls him "The Doom Slayer." As the demons were utterly unable to kill him, they instead sealed him away in the sarcophagus, before the UAC discovered him during an expedition into Hell.

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• '90s Anti-Hero:
  • Has many simple, yet gritty names, No Social Skills, a penchant for grievous bodily harm, often using his own bare hands, a threatening presence to both humans and demons alike, and a simple, yet effective Kill Em All strategy to handling demons and their tech using an oversized arsenal. He could just as well have been a villain if not for his solid moral centre underneath the anger and, come Eternal, how it's really hard to disagree with his stance on meddling with the demonic.
  • It's Played With, however, in regards to his sense of humour and soft spots. Even after years of being dead at the hands of Hell, he still memorializes his pet rabbit Daisy. He collects toys and screws with people who are rude to him nonviolently. He truly enjoys his work and has fun with it. And of course, he loves to troll a giant robot scientist by doing things only in ways that horrify him.
• Absolute Xenophobe: Downplayed in that he only holds this attitude towards the entirety of demonkind and anybody that would associate with them, as he considers them blights on existence that deserve to be erased as soon as possible. Anybody who is neither a demon nor involved with them is perfectly fine, with the worst he acts being an intimidating stare and taking somebody's weapons for his use, but if somebody or something has even the slightest beneficial connection to demonkind, their best bet is to run as far as they can before he can turn them into a bloody smear. Part of this is because, as Eternal reveals, the demons aren't even really a "race", they're just what's churned out by the process of torturing and draining the souls of other sapients, meaning his genocide is less a racial extermination and more a far-reaching example of mass mercy killing. His rampage also extends to the Maykrs for associating with and helping the demons, but he doesn't attack Hayden after his nature as the Seraphim is revealed until Hayden instigates combat, slighting this away from "All of demonkind" to "Anything that threatens humanity," which just so happens to include demonkind anyway.
  Samuel Hayden: You see, I've watched you work - come to understand your motivation. You think the only way is to kill them all - leave nothing behind - and you may be right.
• Action Hero: As with previous versions, the Doom Slayer is a straight-up balls-to-the-wall killing machine who slaughters his way through the forces of Hell without qualm or respite.
• The Ageless: Despite having fought in the ancient wars on Argent D'nur, the Slayer still appears to be in his physical prime. The Khan Maykr even calls him 'once a mortal', implying that either his exposure to Hell energy or the Argent infusion done by Samur halted his aging. Taken even further in that he's the Doomguy from the original games, and thus has stayed in relatively-young adulthood for a bare minimum of one hundred and fifty years. And given the demons' claims he was there "In the first age, in the first battle when the shadows first lengthened" and "The scribes carved his name deep in the tablets of Hell across eons", that really is a bare minimum.
• Alternate Universe: Possibly. Cut dialogue from the Khan Maykr states that, although Human and from Earth, he isn't from this Earth. Instead, he's from an Earth in "the seventh dimension". However, the in-game cyphers explicitly also describe Hell as a timeless dimension, which could be acting as a replacement for the cut dialogue to explain how the Slayer could spend so long in hell while only a hundred and fifty years passed in real-time.
• Ambiguously Human: Has the outer appearance of a human, understands how to use human-made computer interfaces and weapons without any explanation, but also has strange runes etched on his hands, and doesn't flinch when exposed to demonic energy that turns most people into zombies. His Praetor Suit, which was supposedly forged in Hell, has the English letters and numbers "8623", "D22", "CAUTION" and "1/0 Logistics Manufacture" printed on it. In Eternal, Novik and the Betrayer also call the people of Earth "your people" while talking with the Slayer. Logs found in Doom Eternal confirm the Doom Slayer is genetically human (further confirmed by him being Doomguy from the original games), but his body is infused with things the UAC cannot identify which give him his increased speed and strength. A Flashback shows this is something done to him by Samur, a Maykr Seraphim, one of Khan's right-hand angels, during his time with the Sentinels. Samur used the Divinity Machine in Taras Nabad to make him into the Slayer. The Khan Maykr notes that he's no longer a mortal, while Hayden refers to him as a Titan much like the Icon of Sin.
• Ambiguous Situation: At the end of Ancient Gods Part Two, the Slayer collapses after slaying Davoth. It's made clear this happens because the Slayer was created by Davoth and had an intrinsic connection to him from the moment he received a fragment of the Dark Lord via the Divinity Machine, but it's unclear how much Davoth's death has affected the Slayer other than his Post-Victory Collapse.
• And Show It to You: He's capable of tearing out hearts as part of his Glory Kills mechanic. The gore nests likewise require him to rip out their beating hearts to shut them down.
• Anthropomorphic Personification: In Doom Eternal, Dr. Elena Richardson (A UAC scientist trying to figure out who/what the Doom Slayer is) gets a crisis of faith, wondering if the Doom Slayer is an agent of God, or some sort of divinity himself. After seeing footage of him singlehandedly overturning Hellish hordes that Earth's greatest weapons could do nothing about, and noting how he's the only thing the demons truly fear, she concludes that he must be this. Once a man, now the literal embodiment of Doom.
• The Antichrist: The Khan Maykr and her forces were duped by the Dark Lord into believing that there was a mysterious traitor known as the "Beast" in their midst that would bring ruin to their existence. The Slayer's actions certainly did cause it, because they made him their enemy by betraying him and attacking Earth. However, the Maykrs were in an unholy union with Hell itself, making the whole Anti-Christ role necessary in the first place.
• Anti-Anti-Christ: The Dark Lord made the Slayer in his image to be his ultimate weapon and destroy the Maykrs from the inside-out as part of his long-term vengeance. The Doom Slayer instead becomes more of a Messianic Archetype and slays his own creator, using a fragment of the Dark Lord's godly power and empowered by the essence of his enemies in Hell to accomplish it.
• Anti-Hero: While it's very clear that he has a preference for ripping through demon hordes with psychotic enthusiasm, as well as a penchant for violence little can match, the Doom Slayer is still on our side for the right reasons.
• Arch-Enemy: To demonkind as a whole, though The Dark Lord, as their leader, is the top of his list.
• Are These Wires Important?: The Doom Slayer's preferred method for dealing with Argent Energy equipment is to just start breaking things, despite Hayden's demands that he use utmost care. This is also less a matter of being clueless as to what he's dealing with, and more refusing to accede to Hayden's desire to preserve the Argent energy program against all good judgment.
• Ascended Demon: With the Cultist Slayer skin, the Doomslayer is turned into a Demon of Human Origin who decides to fight for humanity instead. In particular, this puts the Marauder's disdainful "you were never one of us" quote in a very different context.
• Assassin Outclassin': Generally played straight whenever the forces of Hell send something to take on the Slayer.
  • The Agaddon Hunters were an order of demons assigned specifically to find and assassinate the Slayer and his fellow Night Sentinels. Considering how they are now formally extinct, while the Slayer is not, it's a pretty safe guess what happened. Come Eternal, those same demons are rebuilt as the Doom Hunters, who are encountered as bosses several times throughout the game, and you're still outclassin' them.
  • Marauder encounters are this taken to its logical extreme. Considering the kind of game that is Doom, if you're not pulling this trope, you're playing it wrong.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The surviving Night Sentinels regard him as their king since the Night Sentinels naturally select the most badass Frontline General in the eternal war against demons as the one most fit to rule.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: His entire shtick is focused around exactly two things - sheer speed and killing power. If you're not constantly moving and killing, you're going to die; he has zero defensive potential (aside from the energy shield mod for his Chaingun in Eternal) other than sheer offence. Properly played, he is the fastest and deadliest thing on the battlefield - but only if you take advantage of his strengths. In fact, the only enemy in the franchise that comes close to matching his mobility is the Marauder, who is feared and hated by many players for this exact reason.
  • His damage output is unmatched; even the above-mentioned Marauder can easily turn into chunky kibbles in literal seconds if you combo his gear properly.
  • Once he gets the Crucible, all bets are off; nothing in the game is safe from an instant dismemberment by the massive laser sword.
• Ax-Crazy: The fact using his bare hands to kill demons is the easiest way to restore his "willpower", despite him having guns and blades that can do the job even faster, makes him come off as psychotically brutal, especially when those kills involve doing things like tearing demons limb from limb, shoving his arms through their chests to rip out their hearts, or crushing their skulls between his palms, just to name a few. Played straight with his backstory, which concretely confirms him to be Doomguy of classic Doom, Doom II, Doom 64: though he stayed behind on the other side of the portal to fend off the forces of Hell at the end of 64, an admirable self-sacrifice, the consequences that would come with fighting for one's life every second of every day, with no reliable nutrition, hydration, sleep, or human contact of any kind. By the time the Night Sentinels found him, he was a battered, gibbering mess that could literally operate on nothing beyond murderous intent and refusal to die. His rambling when found becomes King Novik's commandment to the Slayer when unleashing him: "Rip and tear".
• Barbarian Hero: A sci-fi version. He's a ridiculously muscular, rage-filled lone warrior of legendary skill and ferocity, who after losing his family/home has been wandering the wastelands of Hell taking bloody vengeance on his demonic enemies. By Eternal he's even wearing a new sleeveless battle armour and picked up the Crucible, a magical Cool Sword. The Ancient Gods Pt. 2 even comes with a Barbarian Skin that gives the Slayer an appearance very close to that of Conan the Barbarian.
• Baritone of Strength: As evidenced by flashbacks of his time in Argent D'Nur and cut voice lines, he has a deep voice on par with Samuel Hayden's. And he has the Super-Strength such things implies.
• The Berserker: A quiet, but no less impressive, version. Even though he never speaks, his actions and body language make it clear he is very, very angry. Every aspect of his kit enforces this; if you aren't moving and attacking, you're dying. When he grabs a Berserk Pack, he can One-Hit Kill anything in the game with a ridiculously over-the-top fatality. Highlights include crushing heads between his hands, ripping out hearts, or literally tearing enemies apart, both vertically and horizontally.
• BFG: Uses many guns that are as big as him, including the Chaingun, Gauss Cannon, Ballista, and of course the BFG 9000.
• BFS: His Weapon Of Choice from Argent D'Nur is the Crucible, a Laser Blade greatsword.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Glimpses of his face throughout the game suggest that the Slayer has a thick, heavy brow and equally thick, heavy eyebrows. This isn't much of a surprise by the time the end of the Ancient Gods DLC comes around; after all, the original Doomguy's HUD sprite also featured big, expressive eyebrows.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: In Doom Eternal, the Doom Slayer's upgraded suit comes with the Doomblade, a retractable knife underslung to the left forearm, which he can use to stab and slash during his Glory Kills.
• Blood Knight: He's single-mindedly focused on murdering demons, and if the brutality of the Glory Kills is any indication, he likes fighting. Emphasized in an interview with the 2016 Creative Director.
  Hugo Martin: Most people would avoid the gore nests because they start a fight. The Doom Slayer's looking for a fight.
• Book Ends: Doom (2016) opens with an excerpt from a fictional text, and the first shot of the game is of his glowing red mark on the lid of his opened coffin. Doom Eternal's The Ancient Gods: Part Two ends with the Slayer lowered into a coffin after killing the Dark Lord, the same Slayer's mark can be seen on the lid of the coffin as it is slid into place. Plus, after the camera zooms out to show the Slayer's final resting place, the screen fades to black and displays the following text, the last part of the first game's Epigraph, to symbolize that his crusade against Hell is now finally complete:
  "May the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again."
• Break the Badass: How he turns up mentally in the hands of the Night Sentinels after an untold amount of time in Hell. Some combat therapy and being given a reason to gradually stabilize himself went a long way to restoring his sanity - only to lose everything all over again. This time he settled into a permanent rage instead of breaking again.
• Bring It: The way he loads the Super Shotgun in response to Samur telling him that his quest is over during his attempt to stop the Slayer oozes this.
• Broad Strokes: The "Slayer's Testament" from 2016 implies he was involved in at least a version of the events of Doom, Doom II, and Doom 64, in something the demons refer to as the "first age". Whether it was actually him in those games, or he just had similar adventures, is never made clear though, until Eternal confirms he and Doomguy are the same, tying their stories together.
• Broken Pedestal: Suffice to say, after the Khan Maykr's wanton treachery against him and all reality at large, Doomguy lost all reverence for the Heaven of this reality. This is taken to its logical conclusion in the Ancient Gods expansion, wherein Doomguy crushes The Father's life sphere rather than hand it over to the Seraphim, personally ensuring Urdak can never again rise to a disproportionate level of control over all reality, and to ensure the Father wouldn't be able to stop him from killing the Dark Lord out of compassion.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: While he does succeed in permanently killing off Davoth, it appears that the Slayer's life is also bound to the Dark Lord's - the slayer appears to die after Davoth's life sphere explodes, and he is later buried by Maykrs in a casket that resembles the one he was awakened from. That being said, it's implied that he just passed out from exhaustion rather than actually dying.
• Bruiser with a Soft Center: Yes, really.
  • The Doom Slayer's response to finding a tiny action figure recreation of himself? Give the little dude a fist bump, wiggling his fingers as he pulls his hand back.
  • When the Slayer finds a similar collectible toy of himself in Eternal, he unsheathes his Blade Below the Shoulder — then raises the figure's left hand in the identical pose before bouncing it up and down in happiness for a few moments.
  • He keeps an oil painting of him holding a cute, fluffy bunny rabbit in his office. This is one of the first and biggest hints that he's the Doomguy.
  • In both games, he can seek out and collect a variety of cute action figures of both himself and the demons; he even has an entire shelf set aside for them in the Fortress of Doom.
  • He treats the collectible figurines with care. By the time Eternal rolls around, he even dedicates an entire room within the Fortress of Doom to housing his collection, neatly laid out as well.
  • The lore entries in Eternal indicate that, at the very least, he regards VEGA with a certain amount of respect, dedicating part of his time to improving the program's functionalities. The fact that he thought to save a backup copy of VEGA in 2016 is a hint to his Hidden Depths.
  • When interacting with characters who aren't aligned with demons but have something he needs, he'll make sure not to hurt a hair on their head (like that guy with the keycard on the BFG 10K station), at most just firmly wrenching what he needs out of their hands and moving past them (the guard with the Plasma Rifle who he ends up yanking it away from). This goes to show that, for all of his rage and brutality against the demons, he will NOT harm an innocent if he can help it. Word of God says that he goes out of his way to ensure that "nerds" such as the scientist with the keycard are not harmed, at most threatened by his actions and presence, while "jocks" like the guards get harsher but still non-lethal treatment.
  • As he is the original Doomguy, he had a legitimate, wholehearted fondness for his pet rabbit, Daisy. He even has a framed oil painting of him holding a rabbit in his Fortress of Doom... along with an empty cage containing a rabbit's foot.
• Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: He an incredibly brutal and relentless fighter who prefers overwhelming force to utterly obliterate his enemies so they have no chance of coming back for revenge, and fittingly his preferred forms of weaponry are big, bulky, incredibly powerful sorts, including an assortment of Hand Cannons and BFGs (most especially the BFG), a chainsaw, a BFS, and a warhammer.
• Canon Character All Along: Eternal explicitly confirms the Doom Slayer is Doomguy from the original games, shown in a Flashback on Sentinel Prime wearing his iconic helmet. It also implies that the events of Doom 3 somehow fit into his backstory, as he has a Soul Cube of his own, as well. He keeps his old armour in the Fortress of Doom.
• Canon Identifier: He's for the first time officially referred to as "Doomguy" in Eternal when his name displays on the subtitles when he talks. It's likely this trope rather than his in-universe name. Though John Romero insisted on Twitter that it was his real name.
• The Chosen One: The Doom Slayer was not someone born of high status or legendary repute, instead earning his reputation as The Unchosen One. However, his undying rage caused him to be selected by the Seraphim to hold the battle against Hell where no one else could. Even the reveal that he's the original Doomguy only further cements that he became chosen rather than being born it. However, the revelation that the Dark Lord of Hell itself is effectively an Alternate Self heavily implies that regardless of the timeline, the Slayer is an essential and significant existence. The Ancient Gods - Part Two expands on this and reveals the truth: the Dark Lord is really the Father himself, and Doomguy's uplifting into becoming the Doom Slayer was part of a long, long cosmic plan of vengeance. Though the Slayer remained staunchly in opposition of Hell, he still fulfilled all of the plans of destroying the Dark Lord's enemies in the end, complete with the Divinity Machine holding a fragment of his power that got transferred over. In essence, the Slayer is the chosen one who stumbled into his divine role by pure happenstance, even if he eventually became an enemy of his own creator.
• Closet Geek: While silent and terrifying to the public, his personal room in the Fortress of Doom shows that aside from a stocked bookshelf of references he's a PC gamer, comic book/toy collector and likes tabletop RPGs.
• Close-Range Combatant: Despite being a literal Space Marine in an FPS, the Doom Slayer's playstyle rewards plunging into the fray. Even with his guns and grenades, his strongest weapons are often an oversized chainsaw, an enormous sword powered by rage and his own two hands. Killing demons with your chainsaw or melee finishing moves rewards you with ammo and health, and is often more efficient than shooting them to pieces, and entering a berserker rage where you can only punch makes you more dangerous than your rifle or pistol. Add to the fact that there's limited cover and the hordes of Hell are devilishly fast and can often teleport, and even with guns you'll find yourself shotgunning your foes from the hip rather than sniping them down your sights.
• The Comically Serious: He's silent, incredibly angry and unbelievably violent. However, there is some humour in those aspects of him and what he does, from collecting Doomguy Dolls, fist-bumping one and in Eternal clearly having no care for personal space. If the player is having him wear the Doomicorn armour, he still looks permanently pissed off and strikes powerful poses, but the goofy white-and-pink armour makes him all but unable to be taken seriously.
• Covered in Scars: What little is seen of him without his armour is covered with lots of small scars.
• Crusading Widower: The loss of his wife and infant son at the hands of demons was what began his rage towards the species.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: While capable players can get him through battles without a scratch, lore reveals this was very much his specialty. The incident that got him locked up in the sarcophagus in the first game had him running through Hell, butt naked, with a sword, and slaughtering everything, including a massive Titan demon until the demons finally put a stop to it by dropping a building on him.
• Cutting the Knot:
  • If he can't solve a problem by shooting it, he'll solve it by punching it. Whatever the most direct means of accomplishing his objective is, he does it without hesitation.
  • Played for Laughs in 2016 when Hayden attempts to verbally guide him through shutting down the Argent Filters without destroying them; Doomguy ignores him and promptly smashes it like an angry gorilla.
  • This trope is taken to its logical extreme near the climax of Eternal. The problem? He needs to get to a city buried deep under Mars' surface, and there's no way to get there without digging through all that rock. Solution? Hijack the BFG 10,000 and literally blow a hole directly to it.
• Cynicism Catalyst: The murder of his wife, son, and brothers in arms at the hands of the demons is what turned him into the brutal, vengeful and cold man he is in the present.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Lost his wife, infant son, and pet rabbit to demons. Then, after going insane battling demons in Hell, he finds a new family in the Night Sentinels, only for the demons to destroy them, as well.
• Death Glare:
  • His default expression is just a piercing glare at whatever pisses him off. He amps it up on several people who have earned a higher spot on his shit-list and in response to anyone trying to convince him to give up on his quest.
  • Takes on a special ascension in the Ancient Gods, when it is revealed that the Seraphim was in fact Samuel Hayden the entire time — including when Mars was under siege by Hell and when it was unleashed on Earth. Having Doomguy's helmet off shows him adopting the single most disgusted sneer he's ever put on at this revelation.
• Defector from Decadence: Not that he had much choice in the matter. The Night Sentinels had been corrupted by the Maykrs and the promise of prosperity through Argent energy, and when the Slayer didn't play ball with them, the resulting split in the faction had the Hell Priests strand the Slayer and his loyal forces to be slaughtered by demons. Returning to them briefly on Sentinel Prime highlights that what's left of the Sentinels are entirely at the beck and call of the Khan Maykr.
• Deity of Human Origin: Demigod, for lack of better classification, at any rate. He was an entirely mortal being at first, and human to boot, but that all was tossed to the wayside when Samur, the Seraphim of Urdak, used the chamber meant to purge impurities to infuse Doomguy with Maykr genetics, the Maykrs themselves being the angel race of the Doom reality. As a result, he no longer ages, his physical ability is well beyond normal capability, the Khan Maykr outright states that he's no longer mortal either, but an examination of a blood sample recovered from him on Mars does confirm that, for the most part, he is still biologically human.
  • This "demigod" example becomes literal as of The Ancient Gods Pt. 2, wherein it comes to light that the essence that was infused into the Slayer, escaping even Samur's knowledge, was that of Davoth, the Dark Lord who, as is also revealed, is also the literal God who created all reality. In short, the Slayer was augmented by a fragment of God Himself.
• Demon Slaying: What gave it away? Everything the Doom Slayer does has the purpose of putting demons 6 feet under, getting to points where there are demons to be slain, finding new equipment to help him slay demons, or obtaining information and access needed to get deeper into demon territory. He lives and breathes solely for slaying demons, and chose to be Barred from the Afterlife to continue slaying them. He will use whatever tools he can find to aid him in the goal of slaying demons, whether they are Improvised weaponry, swords, chainsaws, Laser Blades, or BFGs, it does not matter, and if he runs out of ammunition, he will rip the demons apart with his bare hands, fueling his rampage through their own argent energies, making him a Perpetual-Motion Monster. Demon Slaying is not a profession to him - it is all he is; after being woken up from being a Sealed Badass in a Can, he breaks free of his restraints and bashes the first Demon's head in within five seconds and doesn't slow down from there.
• Destructive Saviour: Much to Samuel's annoyance, his method for solving problems usually amounts to destroying whatever is standing in his way — including an Argent Energy extractor which took Samuel years to create. In Eternal he shoots a hole in Mars because he needs to get to its core fast.
• Determinator:
  • His enemies hate and fear this aspect of his personality; see below. Throughout all the countless ages he's been fighting the demonic hordes, he has never once given up nor stopped fighting, even after being trapped alone in Hell for eons on end, losing all of his allies, knowing his actions may potentially doom civilization to a massive energy crisis, or even just being chained up completely naked to a slab with a zombie coming to bite off his face.
    Slayer's Testament: Unbreakable. Incorruptible. Unyielding. .... They knew he would come, as he always had, as he always will, to feast on the blood of the wicked.
  • id Software Creative Director, Hugo Martin, has admitted that Robocop and The Terminator were two inspirations for how the Doom Slayer should behave. Both characters are uncompromising killing machines who never back down, are nearly impossible to kill, and will do anything to accomplish their mission.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He's taken out demon lords as big as mountains, killed near-indestructible monsters, and faced down generations of the legions of Hell with little more than guns, blades and in many cases his bare hands. Come Eternal, he's added an alien god and her questionably-angelic minions to that body count, and in The Ancient Gods he sets his sights on the Devil himself. By the end of Part 2, he does.
• Dimensional Traveler: He travelled from his original universe to that of the reboot after Doom 64, with a new Earth and a new Hell. Cut dialogue from Khan Maykr specifies that he's from "the seventh dimension".
• Doomed Hometown: After his allies, the Night Sentinels, were defeated and their realm Argent D'nur was destroyed, he embarked on an endless war into the bowels of Hell. With the reveal in Eternal that he's the classic Doomguy, this also means demons invaded his Earth back in Doom II: Hell on Earth, driving him to eventually remain in Hell to forever battle the forces of Doom at the end of 64.
• Double Jump: His thruster boots upgrade lets him jump an additional time in the air.
• The Dreaded: If the classic Doomguy was an One-Man Army, the Slayer is an outright force of nature.
  • The entirety of Hell tried to keep him sealed away during their invasion of Mars for as long as possible, and they only managed to stop him the first time by dropping an entire temple right on top of him. When the UAC found his tomb, the demons began to freak out, fighting with "a desperate ferocity" that the UAC had never seen before. There's a reason he's generally referred to as the Doom Slayer (also Hell Walker, the Unchained Predator, Scourge of Hell).
  • In Eternal, the reaction of the UAC personnel who see him is to recoil in terror. One poor man who has the misfortune of possessing the key the Slayer needs can only lean back in his chair, petrified in fear, and doesn't move as the Slayer grabs the keycard, drags him by the strap to the door lock, and uses it to move on. In the next room, two UAC guards start to challenge the Slayer but go completely silent as they realize who they're talking to, with the Slayer giving the mouthiest guard a Death Glare and taking the terrified man's weapon without a word. The base computer also has alarms specifically to warn of the Doom Slayer.
    Facility Voice: Warning: The Slayer has entered the facility.
    Facility Voice: WARNING: Slayer threat level at maximum.
    Facility Voice: DANGER. ALL PERSONNEL EVACUATE TO MARS SURFACE. THE SLAYER HAS CONTROL OF THE BFG. REPEAT, THE SLAYER HAS THE BFG.
  • Once the Doom Slayer gets his hands on the BFG in Eternal, the Phobos moon base staff begin scrambling to evacuate to Mars. Mere moments beforehand, the Doom Slayer used the base's BFG 10000 cannon to blow a hole into the surface of Mars: a planet that is falling apart due to a head-on blast from a world-shattering cannon (and later confirmed to be completely destroyed) is considered PREFERABLE to being anywhere near a BFG-toting Slayer!
• Earn Your Happy Ending: It took twenty years and five games in real-life, to say nothing of how long he fought In-Universe, but with Davoth's death, the Slayer's war against Hell has finally been won.
• Elective Mute: Doom Eternal notes that he’s fully capable of speech, but stopped doing so after gaining his enhanced power. Apart from grunting whenever he's hit in Eternal, he’s been completely silent for millennia, and it takes the Dark Lord's demise for him to say a single word.
• Emissary from the Divine: Claimed by Samur in The Ancient Gods DLC. Not that the Slayer particularly cares.
  Samur: You are given the honour to serve the gods... yet again.
• Empowered Badass Normal:
  • The Doom Slayer collects assorted scientific and magical tokens to power himself up; argent energy cells to enhance his armour's basic capabilities, special Praetor enhancement tokens to upgrade various utility functions and equipment traits, and demonic runes to magically augment his capabilities; he's also been empowered by angels with enough strength and speed to go One-Man Army on Hell, though records indicate that he was already kicking huge amounts of ass by the time they did.
  • This extends to his backstory in Doom Eternal; He started as a Badass Normal when the Sentinels found him, badly wounded after fighting demons since the original Doom games for god knows how long; and even when he was battered, wounded, and weak he still handed the asses of everyone they threw at him in the Coliseum, and after being given the "prize" of being Cannon Fodder on the frontlines with the other "Arena Champions", he continued to fight and live when everyone else in his "rank" died. When the Demons invaded and all hope looked lost, one of Khan Maykr's right-hand angels, The Seraphim, put Doomguy in a machine that was supposed to weed out the darkness out of the Sentinels. The Seraphim instead used it to power Doomguy up into the Doom Slayer by pumping him full of Pure-Maykr Grade energy. And then it turns out that Seraphim was manipulated into unwittingly putting a shard of none other than Dark Lord Davoth's, meaning that the Slayer was empowered by part of God himself.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • The intro of Doom (2016) is one for the Slayer: He wakes up naked and chained to a slab after Hell's forces sealed him in a coffin and dropped an entire temple on top of him just to be safe. The instant he's awake and aware, he rips out the chains, smashes a zombie's head to paste with his bare hands, and blasts two others to pieces with a pistol. He then finds his armor and immediately searches for the source of the demonic infection on Mars. When interrupted by Samuel Hayden's offering of help, he spitefully throws the monitor against the wall and leaves. After which he goes on to clear another room full of demons. And the moment that Samuel Hayden tries to justify what's happened to the base by saying that his actions were for "the betterment of all mankind", the Doom Slayer looks down on a human corpse, gets enraged by it and destroys the monitor Hayden's speaking on. This establishes the Slayer as a ruthless Badass No-Nonsense Nemesis (to the Demons) who still retains some of his humanity.
  • The Slayer seems to understand and respect authority. He could have done a lot more to King Novik and the Betrayer, who had both separately called him out on his unyielding crusade against the demons, at the possible expense of everyone else, beyond giving a mere Death Glare in response. Also, when he beheaded Deag Nilox at the start of the game, the Slayer adjusted the Hell Priest's crown, which became lopsided during the event, possibly out of respect for who he once was, and all the help had given the Slayer when he was still Doomguy. Likewise, upon spilling Deag Grav's blood on the arena floor of Sentinel Prime — an act that costs the Slayer his sovereignty amongst the Sentinels — and being faced with a squad of them, he chooses to simply turn away and leave rather than wipe the floor with them.
  • At the start of one of the later levels in Eternal, the Slayer walks through a control room on Phobos filled with UAC employees. Everyone is spooked by his appearance, either looking on in shock or scrambling to get out of his way. One UAC employee has a keycard — that the Slayer needs to access the inner parts of the facility — on a lanyard hung around his neck; the Slayer takes the card (while it is still hung around the employee's neck) and uses it on the nearby control panel to open the door, gently but firmly dragging the poor fellow along by his neck in the process. In the next room, the Slayer stares down a UAC Marine — who briefly admonished him for entering a restricted area before falling silent upon realising who he actually is — before taking said Marine's plasma gun for his own use. Beyond mild discomfort, the Slayer clearly went out of his way to make sure he did not hurt any of the humans who saw him.
• Eternal Hero: He might have originally been just a man, but the Slayer has become the eternal bane of Hell itself, having torn his way through the demonic hordes for untold eons. Also emphasized by King Novik's closing monologue at the end of Doom Eternal:
  Novik: ...And you will be their saviour. Your strength will be their shield and your will... their sword. You remain... unbroken... for your fight is eternal.
• "Eureka!" Moment: In the Ancient Gods expansion, when the Seraphim remarks to the Slayer that "despite (his) transgressions, (he) will have the honour to serve the gods yet again," The Slayer actually stops cold, and looks down with an uncharacteristically conflicted and ponderous look on his face. It's likely at this moment he recognizes he can't give the Seraphim the Father's life sphere, as bring the Father back to physical form means he wouldn't be able to do the same to Davoth due to the former's overwhelming compassion for his creation.
• Everyone Has Standards: He may be a brutal, gun-toting and destructive maniac that inflicts enough pain upon the denizens of Hell to become their boogeyman, but he wants to protect humanity from the invasions, thus mostly intimidating those that stand in his way rather than going in with violence. He's also willing to spare VEGA with a backup copy in a proposed Heroic Sacrifice for the AI, all on his own inclination, and doesn't pick a fight with those that aren't gunning for him, no matter how much contempt he has for the likes of Samuel Hayden.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Is perhaps the only person in the Doom universe to have learned this lesson in regards to Argent Energy.
  • He is instantly disgusted and angry with the UAC for attempting to harness Hell to answer the energy crisis. The moment he gets his bearings and learns this, he already knows what went wrong, how it will escalate and the danger all of humanity now finds itself in. His attitude and actions show pretty clearly that he believes the UAC recklessly meddled in matters beyond their understanding or control. The consequences don't disprove this outlook, nor does the reveal of just where Argent Energy actually comes from in Eternal.
  • This becomes even more poignant when it's revealed in Eternal that Argent D'nur collapsed because its people and the Maykrs grew addicted to Argent energy and made an alliance with Hell, betraying the Night Sentinels in the process. The Slayer knows exactly what the corrupting influence of Hell and Argent energy is capable of and doesn't want to see it repeated on Earth.
• Expansion Pack Past: 2016 explained the Doom Slayer was the last surviving Night Sentinel who spent an unknown period of time rampaging through Hell in retribution for the fall of Argent D'Nur. Eternal then expanded his backstory by not only revealing the details of Argent D'Nur's fall and how it relates to him but also that he was originally the Doomguy from the original games. He entered Hell in Doom 64 to battle the demons eternally only to emerge in the distant past on Argent D'Nur in an Alternate Timeline.
• Explosive Punch: The "Blood Punch" from ETERNAL has the Slayer strike with a ton of built up energy, resulting in a blast that can one-shot most basic enemies. It can only be used once he's charged up enough energy by performing Glory Kills.
• The Extremist Was Right: While Samuel Hayden only wants to temporarily shut down the production of Argent Energy, to avoid plunging Earth and its colonies into an energy crisis, the Slayer's response to this proposal is to destroy the production of Argent altogether, by destroying the filters that alter the raw Hell Energy into Argent. Considering how easily the presence of Hell in any capacity can corrupt mortals, as the UAC clearly demonstrated, and considering the damage the Demons can do in such a short time if allowed, it's really, really hard to disagree with him on this one. The sequel lays the argument to rest once and for all by revealing the true nature of Argent Energy, which even Hayden cannot tolerate.
• Expy: He takes some character traits from the biblical hero Samson, as aside from being a One-Man Army and a berserker, he was betrayed by somebody he trusted and had a temple dropped on him, obtained his strength from a divine force, and singlehandedly defeated an entire army for the sake of a group of people said army was victimizing (Philistines and Israelites for Samson, and Demons and Humanity as a whole for the Doomslayer).
• Eye Scream: He likes to dole these out for a few Glory Kills, either with his Doomblade or using the demons' body parts to achieve it. For instance, some Arachnotron kills involve him using their claws to skewer their eyes while they're disoriented.
• Face Death with Dignity: Played for Laughs - his response to burning alive in lava is to give the thumbs up before sinking fully into molten slag.
• The Faceless: In the first game, his face is completely obscured by his visor. Subverted in Eternal, where his face is seen through his visor, and he takes it off to look The Dark Lord in the eyes before he kills him.
• Fatal Family Photo: Inverted. He has a torn photograph of a family at a desk in his living quarters; it is of a woman and a young boy, with the father torn from the frame. According to Word of God, they are his wife and son from before this all happened. In all likelyhood, his family isn't around anymore, and he's outlived them for centuries at least.
• Featureless Protagonist: You never get a good idea of what his face looks like. However, you can kind of see his facial features through the helmet's visor, and he does have a face texture, which some fans were able to rip. In-engine cutscenes that leave the Doom Slayer's perspective show that his visor is more transparent, with his eyes becoming more prominent. In Doom Eternal, his face is far more visible, most notably when it's reflected in his visor after obtaining a power-up. In one cutscene, he is also shown without his helmet, at least from behind. Averted come Eternal, both because we see his face at several points, and because we've known what it looked like since 1993, and even further averted in The Ancient Gods, where he removes his helmet before killing Davoth.
• Finishing Move: The Doom Slayer can do these to demons, something borrowed from the popular Brutal Doom Game Mod. It's actually encouraged to do this, as enemies finished off with a "Glory Kill" are guaranteed to drop health pickups (and armour fragments, with a rune in 2016), and Glory Kills are the only way to finish off bosses.
• Fragile Speedster: With his Double Jump and Videogame Dashing, the Slayer is capable of zipping effortlessly around the map and dodging fireballs left and right. And not without good reason, since he can't tank very well at all despite his impressive damage output.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Twice. He went from being a faceless UAC marine who was Reassigned to Antarctica for refusing to fire on innocent civilians to one of the most relentless killing machines in gaming. His enemies - themselves being monstrosities who make the bogeyman cry for mommy - are absolutely terrified of him. This also applies to his time in Argent D'Nur, where he rose from a nameless slave-soldier to become king of the Night Sentinels.
• Genius Bruiser: In addition to his enormous build, he's also well-read, an avid gunsmith, a capable leader of armies, a highly competent and out-of-the-box strategist and able to perform maintenance on an AI.
• Genre Savvy: He knows damn well that Argent Energy isn't the sort of thing that can be safely (or even 'acceptably riskily') exploited; it is Bad News and the best way to deal with it is to destroy its sources as soon as he can to prevent it from causing more trouble.
• Gentle Giant: Yes, this is actually played straight insofar as human innocents are concerned. When he arrives on Phobos the Slayer walks through a control room filled with UAC employees. When he needs a keycard that's on a lanyard hung around a scientist's neck the Slayer takes the card (while it is still hung around the employee's neck) and uses it on the nearby control panel to open the door, gently but firmly dragging the poor fellow along by his neck in the process. It's a remarkable amount of restraint and awareness from someone strong enough to snap the poor guy's neck like a twig even by accident. The developers have stated that he is a lot more gentle around "nerds," trying not to harm them even if he wants to be firm, while "jocks" get harsher treatment which, even then, is limited to him snatching a guard's Plasma Rifle for no reason.
• Given Name Reveal:
  • As has been slated on multiple occasions in statements made by Id Software since Doom of 2016, Doomguy is a direct descendant of the Blazkowicz bloodline. Now, whether or not that means it's the same as in the Doom RPG titles, William Joseph "BJ" Blazkowicz III, hasn't been stated assuredly, but the family name at least is concrete.
  • While it's from an Easter Egg that doubles as a Call-Back, considering all the strides taken to meld every Doom entry as part of the same universe, FLYNNTAGGART being the password to unlock Doom II in-game suggests that the Doom Slayer might use the name he has in the novels, Flynn Taggart, as an alias.
  • Lore entries give his Super Shotgun canonical nicknames by the forces of Hell, akin to dubbing the protagonist the Doom Slayer, Lucifer's Bane, and the Diabolical Musket.
  • With confirmation from Doom Eternal that he's related to Commander Keen and that he's the Doomguy from the original series, it's safe to assume that his name is either William Joseph "BJ" Blazkowicz III or Stan Blazkowicz.
• Glass Cannon: Comparatively at the very least. For all his demon-mauling bravado, and despite his ability to rip apart even the biggest demons around, the Slayer can't take hits from those same demons very well. Virtually every hit from anything larger than an imp will take out a noticeable chunk of health, and the key to his survival thus lies in using his enhanced agility to bob and weave around them to avoid attacks, and his ability to recuperate strength from Glory Kills. The thing that makes it a Zig-Zagged Trope is the fact that the Doom Slayer is at least capable of surviving a few hits, even from titans, where a normal human would just be reduced to paste, and judging by the Scarred Equipment that is his armor, he does get hit a lot. The codex entry on the Praetor suit even specifically mentions that it's essentially immune to conventional weaponry; it's just that the demons are using anything but.
• Godzilla Threshold: Is the proverbial Godzilla for Samuel Hayden, as waking him from his can leads him to destroy everything related or even concerning Hell, including the extremely powerful Argent energy that the company had been exploiting Hell for. Thus, it is rather telling when he has a threshold of his own, that being reviving the Dark Lord to seal demonkind back into Hell.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: His armour is a mix of earthy greens, greys and browns, compared to the demons' predominately red and yellow bodies that evoke fire and blood. To finalize the trope, The Ancient Gods Part 2 features the Dark Lord, an Evil Counterpart whose armor has a red-yellow color scheme.
• Good Is Not Nice: Clearly on humanity's side, but due to a combination of dealing with people who screwed things up and being too deep into everlasting fury to care, the Doom Slayer is rude as hell. He refuses to listen to people, his only forms of communication are Death Glares and violence, and if you have something he wants, he'll just take it without asking.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Besides shooting, sawing and Pistol-Whipping, the Doom Slayer often uses his bare hands to kill demons. Rather than fighting with finesse or technique, he typically pummels demons until their limbs collapse, ribs shatter, and skulls cave in, or jams his hands into openings and tears them inside out with brute force.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: In Eternal, the Doom Slayer's Super Shotgun is now equipped with an underslung grapnel attachment that he can use to snag onto enemies from a distance and pull himself closer to them. It's called "The Meat Hook".
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Some of the Glory Kills he can perform on his unfortunate enemies involve killing them with their own limbs or other body parts. An example: One Glory Kill on a Whiplash has the Slayer break their arm in two, exposing the bone, before stabbing them in the face with said bone as an improvised shiv.
• Guest Fighter: The Doom Slayer makes a playable appearance in Quake Champions, with alternative textures allowing you to make him look like his classic incarnation, his design from Quake III: Arena or the Marine from Doom³.
  • He also appears as a Mii Costume in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a gunner.
• Gun Nut: As Hayden notes, his enthusiasm for firepower is very evident. It's best communicated in Eternal, where when he finally arrives at the helm of the BFG-10K only for the built-in protocols to kick in.
  VEGA: Would you like me to disable the safety protocols?
  Slayer: *Mashes fire button furiously.*
• Hell Seeker: According to The Slayers Testament, The Doom Slayer chose to enter Hell in order to destroy all of the monsters and demons within it; to the point where the Demons became absolutely terrified of this being who fought against them endlessly across entire EONS.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Defied - given he's running around in a suit of armour that feeds on Argent Energy, the same Hellish power that the UAC used to create its Possessed and Revenants, it is easy to think that the Doom Slayer is some kind of demonic entity himself. This is all proven incorrect by a research log in Eternal stating in no uncertain terms that there is no way the Doom Slayer is a demon - his blood type is AB positive, and his genome confirms that he is human.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: His weapon from Argent D'nur, the Crucible, is a massive Laser Blade greatsword. That said, the rest of his arsenal being predominantly guns downplays this, although the Crucible is still his strongest weapon by far.
• Heroic Build: Eons spent ripping and tearing through the forces of Hell have left him seriously ripped.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: The majority of his violent or thoughtless actions are played for laughs rather than any kind of drama: He murders demons in various ridiculous and inventive ways, and usually just goes for "smash it in with your hands and feet" when dealing with UAC equipment, drags around technicians by the keycards attached to their necks or just slings their half-eaten corpse over his back if they're already dead, and gleefully steals weapons from random corpses and even living guards.
• Heroic Mime: As usual, he never speaks - his actions tend to speak louder than words, though. However, pained grunts upon taking damage can be heard in Eternal. Played with when Flashbacks show him fully capable of talking, with a codex entry stating that he simply chose to stop speaking, so in reality, he simply refuses to speak, given how dead focused he is on his work. The Ancient Gods Part 2 showcases this as he utters a single "No" when the Dark Lord asks him if he has any Pre-Mortem One-Liner.
• Heroic Second Wind: His extra lives mechanic in Eternal is described In-Universe as such - even after nearly being killed by a pack of demons, the Doom Slayer forces himself back up with pure anger and willpower to keep fighting.
• Hidden Agenda Hero: When his actions in 2016, Eternal and Ancient Gods are taken together, it becomes clear that he had his own plans for dealing with demons that didn't quite line up with the plans drawn by ARC or Samur.
  • This is especially evident in Ancient Gods where he breaks script and opts to resurrect the Dark Lord instead of The Father like Samur requested.
  • In Eternal, it is suggested that the Slayer was aware of Nekravol and the process to create Argent energy and demons from tortured human spirits. This puts his utter disregard for Argent equipment in 2016 in a new light, suggesting he was intent of stopping production all along, rather than acting the part of Dumb Muscle as Samuel likely believed to be the case.
• Hidden Depths: Especially considering he never says a word.
  • While he's still a rampaging berserker, he shows surprising depths at times. For instance, he's obviously disgusted with Hayden's callousness toward the loss of life he's ultimately caused, yet still doesn't make any attempt on the man's life when they meet in person (though you can try to shoot him, Hayden has a Plot Armor energy shield). He also hesitates to destroy VEGA, a fully sentient A.I., even though he knows it's necessary, and even ultimately makes a backup first.
  • When tasked with taking out the Argent energy filters, he stomps them with his boot not out of ignorance or a lack of grace, but deliberately because of Hayden's insistence that they are to be treated with care - as destroying them will seal off any Argent energy supply for good - which is exactly what he wants. There will be consequences, yes, but for now, stopping humanity's meddling with Argent energy takes priority or there won't be any humanity left.^note He even briefly pauses before destroying the last one when Hayden desperately says that he must not, just in case there was some actual danger he was unaware of... only to destroy it before Hayden can even finish his sentence the moment it becomes clear it's just more of Hayden downplaying the scale of the disaster and insisting he can restart his operations safely later on.
  • He's also surprisingly adept with technology (when he's not intentionally destroying it), given how long he may have been fighting in Hell. He only ever hesitates on his options for VEGA and otherwise seems to speed through numerous options and activation with no real difficulty. Even on Olivia's personal and top-secret computers, he doesn't waste a second on any single option as he picks through them to unlock what he needs. The interfaces may be user-friendly, but he clearly knows what he's doing.
  • Albeit Played for Laughs and more likely considered as Easter Eggs, his Fortress of Doom in Eternal contains many trinkets that would be considered odd for a person with a single-minded dedication to demonic genocide, such as a bookshelf filled with literature on various topics ranging from Earth history to A.I. systems maintenance, several wall-mounted electric guitars (including one made out of argent energy), his massive action figure collection, a tri-monitor desktop gaming system with subwoofers which also serves as his command console, an old IBM 486 computer^note which players can also use to run the classic Doom games, a skateboard^note which is more of an in-joke referencing Doomguy's appearance in Tony Hawk's Pro Skaterand perhaps most tellingly, an empty rabbit cage with a single foot inside of it. Who knew, or would have guessed, that the Slayer was a musician, avid gamer, and bookworm?
  • Despite having him at his complete mercy and generally not inclined to let him get off easy for picking a fight with him, he ends up sparing Samur Maykr after hesitating and being told by the Father that killing him isn't necessary. He may hate him for being a massive pain in his ass throughout the entirety of 2016, but the Doom Slayer is indeed capable of mercy toward someone he does not like at all, provided said someone isn't a demon or demonic.
• Hope Bringer: Come to the events of Eternal, the Doom Slayer is a figure Shrouded in Myth to most of humanity, though his reputation and the tales of his exploits on Mars preceded him. The ARC and those living under its protection come to see him as a savior and protector, even if his violent tendencies do give them cause for concern. Regardless, his new conquests on Earth gradually embolden the resistance and inspire hope in them, as they watch him wreaking havoc from afar. He also became one to the people of Argenta as conscripts saw one of their own not only becoming a Sentinel but one of the best when it comes to killing demons.
• Horrifying the Horror: Really driven home, where various data pads (on Mars) and artifacts (in Hell) make it clear just how terrible the Doom Slayer is for the denizens of Hell. It was said that the demons fought with unprecedented ferocity to prevent the UAC from retrieving the Doom Slayer's sarcophagus.
  Trailer: The only thing they fear... is you.
• Human Alien: The first game drops hints implying that he's a human-like alien from the planet Argent D'nur. But it's Subverted as Eternal reveals that he's none other than the Earth-born Doomguy from the original games, having been found and taken in by the Night Sentinels after spending an unknown amount of time in Hell following the events of 64.
• Human Cannonball: In Eternal, he loads himself into a futuristic cannon, in place of the spherical bomb that it'd normally fire, to launch himself through space and into an infested battle cruiser. It has to be seen to be believed.
• Humanoid Abomination: The Doom Slayer begins the 2016 game with strange runes etched on his hands, and he doesn't flinch when exposed to demonic energy for the sake of a buff. Eternal further reveals he is in fact 100% human, with a blood type of AB positive and a perfectly normal genome... which makes his superhuman abilities and the unknown foreign elements seemingly filling his body all the more inexplicable.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: The Doom Slayer can carry up to nine guns at once, ranging from the humble combat shotgun to the all-obliterating BFG-9000, as well as his trusty chainsaw, a variety of grenades, and the almighty Crucible sword. And that's not even mentioning the wide variety of weapon mods which he pulls out of nowhere to swap around at a moment's notice, ranging from a sticky bomb launcher for the combat shotgun to a mobile turret and energy shield attachment for the chaingun. As such, though he appears to be carrying no more than his armour, a single weapon, his equipment launcher, and a Blade Below the Shoulder, the Doom Slayer has a tool for virtually every type of demonic dilemma Hell throws at him within reach, and he is quick on the draw. At one point in 2016, he even stuffs an entire upper torso of a mangled corpse into his inventory to bypass a retinal scanner.
• I Have Many Names: He's acquired quite a few monikers from demons and humans alike, including the Doom Slayer, the DOOM Marine, DM1-5, the Hell Walker, the Unchained Predator, the Scourge of Hell, the Great Slayer, and, of course, Doomguy.
• I Like Those Odds: Though it's a nonverbal version, it's very clear that the Doom Slayer does not care about being outnumbered. His response to being told that he is Just One Man against millions, if not billions, of demons from The Legions of Hell, is to pump his shotgun with a determination that nonverbally screams "I call that a countdown" - and then get right into the thick of it.
• Implacable Man: The Slayer cannot be reasoned or bargained with. He could at best be mildly slowed down and inconvenienced, by pitting him against innumerable hordes of demons, and he'd still be coming for your skin eventually. It's why he is so damn feared among the demons - no matter what they throw at him, he'll overpower it in some way.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: A very dark version - he's not corrupted by the influence of Hell, which turns most people into demon worshipers or monsters because there's nothing left in him but pure vengeance.
  Slayer's Testament: Tempered by the fires of Hell, his iron will remained steadfast through the passage that preys upon the weak. For he alone was the Hell Walker, the Unchained Predator, who sought retribution in all quarters, dark and light, fire and ice, in the beginning, and the end.
• Inexplicably Awesome:
  • His ability to absorb strength from demons is never explained - he had it even before the Seraphim bestowed him Super-Strength and Super-Speed. It's not something the Night Sentinels have either; they all had a Dying Moment of Awesome each, so it's not related to them. Given the Dark Lord has a similar ability, and given how the Slayer was created by him, it's probably a safe bet that he got it from his creator.
  • His Hyperspace Arsenal is never explained. How does it work? Who made it? Does it have a limit? The answer to all these has so far been a resounding "Who cares, just kill stuff with its contents".
• Irony: He's a heroic figure and Messianic Archetype who fights the demonic hordes of Hell, but his attitude and weaponry would better imply him as The Antichrist. In Eternal, he faces off against the angelic Maykrs, their leader the Khan Maykr looking like a demon beneath her armor, and The Ancient Gods reveals that the Dark Lord is actually the Father who created the universe in the first place.
• It's Personal: Even without the vendetta when he was just known as Doomguy, the demons still corrupted and slaughtered his comrades in the demon-killing order of warriors, the Night Sentinels, and then destroyed his homeworld.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Comes off as a more clear-cut Well-Intentioned Extremist than Hayden, as he knows from experience how much damage can be done if Hell is allowed to corrupt a given society. His point gets even stronger when you learn just how Argent Energy is made.
• Jerkass to One: Right off the bat in Doom (2016), he seems to develop an instant and almost unreasonable hatred for Samuel Hayden the second he hears that Hayden is the head of the facility, particularly when he hears that Hayden believes the horrific loss of life caused by dealing with Hell was "worth the risk" for its rewards. Almost every time he has to deal with Hayden, the Slayer will either violently cut off his transmissions, or deliberately smash the expensive stuff he's explicitly told to keep intact as if to rub it into Hayden's face. On the other hand, once he figures out just what the UAC is up to, it makes total sense that he'd want to shut their operation down, since he already knows exactly what Argent Energy is and how it's made, and Hayden makes it very clear that shutting it down is not in the cards for him. Eternal shows that he's still more than a little contemptuous of Hayden; when recovering the doctor's shattered chassis, rather than carefully detaching it as the ARC scientist advises him to, the Slayer just nonchalantly yanks him out of his life support systems instead, which makes his entire chassis fall and slam resoundingly against the floor. As if that's not enough, as soon as the Marauder rocks up to the scene, the Slayer just casually flings what's left of Hayden into a portal without even looking.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Being a person of unstoppable rage doesn’t exactly give you good social skills. Through the games, he has proven himself to be violent, gruff, disrespectful, and all-around not a nice man to be around. However, he is predominately dealing with people who believed they could harness Hell as a power source without consequence. That said, he still cares greatly for the human lives lost, and he’s trying his best to ensure humanity’s survival.
  • As he was about to destroy VEGA's central core, he immediately creates a backup copy on his person before VEGA dies out. He knew full well VEGA would be Killed Off for Real, but his last-second conscience allowed VEGA to stay alive.
• Kill the God: The Ancient Gods - Part Two reveals Davoth is the original creator deity, meaning the Doom Slayer's quest to kill him is a quest of deicide. Naturally, he succeeds.
• King in the Mountain: At the end of The Ancient Gods - Part Two, The Slayer, after his Post-Victory Collapse against the Dark Lord, is placed in a sarcophagus not unlike the one he was found in at the start of Doom - between the fact that he is conscious, his heartbeats, and the final line of the story Bookending to the intro to Doom, it's very heavily implied that by the time he's awoken once more, he'll be back to One-Man Army status.
• Knight in Sour Armor: One interpretation of his behavior; he may not be the most calm or peaceful person around, but he still fights for what he believes in and against Hell. His unbridled rage at the UAC shows a cynical and bitter side, and yet his team-up with Hayden also shows he'll put it aside on a whim for the greater good of stopping Hell again.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: At the start of Eternal, the audience is given several good glimpses at his massive chin and squared heroic jawline. The end of the Ancient Gods DLC reveals that he has a chin like a granite outcrop, befitting his identity as the original Doomguy.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: A good two years prior to Eternal, his true identity as the Doomguy was first laid out explicitly in his Quake Champions bio. However, this seems to be a case of Canon Welding, as Quake Champions wasn't considered to be fully canon when it comes to the bios of its Guest Fighters.
• Legendary in the Sequel: He's The Dreaded to the forces of Hell and demanding their full attention to stopping him from halting their invasion. Goes further since he's the original Doomguy, who was just one among the many marines in the older games.
• Lightning Bruiser: He's capable of outrunning virtually every demon and delivering punishing firepower while tearing them apart with his bare hands, but in return, he needs to stay on the move constantly to survive, to the point the developers have stated: "if you stand still, you're going to die".
• Little "No": His response to the Dark Lord Davoth when the latter asks if he has any words before striking him down. It's the one and only time the Slayer speaks outside of Vocal Grunting that isn't in a flashback.
• Living Legend: He's basically become to the Demons what they are to us, being feared in-story and having all the forces of Hell either wary at least or outright shitting themselves at the very worst.
• Madness Mantra: After the Night Sentinels pulled him out of Hell as seen in the flashbacks in Eternal, his time fighting the demons of hell left him so traumatized that he could only say "Rip and tear" or "Huge guts" while deliriously lashing out at everything around him.
• Megaton Punch: In Eternal, he gains the "Blood Punch" ability, which allows him to deliver a supercharged punch that reduces anything standing in front of him that's weaker than a Hell Knight into red slop on the floor.
• Messianic Archetype: The Ancient Gods - Part Two reveals him to be a messiah figure. The beginning of the base game is his second coming, his return to Earth shows he's become a Hope Bringer, his Arch-Enemy is the devil, and he was uplifted directly by God in His own image.
• Mook Horror Show: The Slayer's Testament, an account of the Doom Slayer's endless rampage against Hell, reads like a demon bedtime horror story. An unstoppable foe carving a bloody path through their forces with the wrath of the heavens itself. That is until confronted by Hell's mightiest champion, the colossal Titan. But even the Titan falls to the Slayer's might. The Testament's finale, when the demons seal their nemesis away because he could not be killed, still carries the implicit threat that one day: he might escape.
• Multi-Melee Master: Adept with a wide range of close-combat techniques and weapons, including his hands, feet, Pistol-Whipping, a forearm-mounted blade, chainsaws, a giant laser greatsword, and even random dismembered demon body parts. Make no mistake, if he can wield it in his hands, he's likely to find a way to use it for demon slaughter.
• Multi-Ranged Master: General rule of thumb: If it can be used to kill, the Doom Slayer knows how to kill with it after a few seconds of inspection. He has used rocket launchers, miniguns, turrets, shotguns, pistols, plasma rifles, railguns, grenades, assault rifles, Swiss Army Weapons, BFGs... the list goes on.
• Multiple-Choice Past: In 2016, codex entries give few concrete facts about the Doom Slayer's origins, but plenty of Wild Mass Guessing fuel. Several references to the classic series enforce the fan theory that he's the Doomguy. However, there are also hints that the Doom Slayer was the last surviving member of the Night Sentinels, protecting the dimension that Hell completely subsumed. Eternal reveals that both are true - he is Doomguy and the Sole Survivor of the Night Sentinels.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The demons, who call their forces "the slaves of Doom", have a name for him, too - the Doom Slayer.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Doom Slayer despises demons, Hell, and anyone collaborating with either. He'll kill anyone that's been corrupted and turned like the Hell Priests or the Marauders. However, he's trying to save the earth as well and not just kill the demons, after all, if he was only concerned with killing the demons he wouldn't go out of his way to stop the Maykrs from sacrificing the earth. He's trying to save humanity while also waging war against Hell and any time he interacts with normal people, he may be rude and scare the shit out of them but he won't hurt them. Best shown when he arrives on Phobos. Though he's somewhat rough with what he needs from them (a key card from an employee and a plasma rifle from a marine), the worst they get is mild discomfort and being left trembling in fear. Otherwise, they're completely unharmed.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: A rare example where the protagonist is the nemesis. The Doom Slayer does not waste any time when it comes to dealing with his enemies; he dispatches them as ruthlessly and efficiently as possible. All of the Hell Priests are Killed Mid-Sentence less than thirty seconds after he closes in on them. In The Ancient Gods - Part Two, the only reason Davoth even survived his first true encounter with the Doom Slayer was that the chamber he was reformed in had a failsafe that prevented the Super Shotgun from harming him at all, forcing the Slayer to fall back on rallying the Night Sentinels for The War Sequence. When he finally does kill him at the end, he doesn't waste any time or words.
• No Ontological Inertia: Downplayed. In Ancient Gods after taking out Davoth, Doomguy immediately passes out from the constant, non-stop battles he's been through over the DLCs without part of Davoth's power to keep him going.
• No Sense of Personal Space: In Eternal, rather than asking for UAC employees to hand over a keycard or a plasma rifle, the Doom Slayer drags the terrified worker over to the card input with it still around his neck, and just snatches the rifle out of a soldier's hands.
• Nonstandard Character Design: Despite the Slayer's Testament claiming "he wore the crown of the Night Sentinels", his armour looks utterly different from any other Night Sentinel you meet, even in scrolls depicting him fighting side by side with them. While they look closer to sci-fi versions of medieval knights in white armour, the Doom Slayer's suit looks closer to an Earth-designed one reforged with Hell touches, and it's colored with nothing but greens, browns and greys instead.
• Not Afraid of Hell: Oh no. If the page up to this point didn't convince you that he isn't afraid of Hell, it's time to reiterate. He isn't afraid of Hell. Hell is afraid of him!
• The Nth Doctor: He rarely ever talks, but the two times he speaks are before and after his transformation into the Slayer. The first is his insane ramblings as played by Matthew Watterson, the second is his one-word Pre-Mortem One-Liner as Jason Kelley.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: During his rampage of Hell, he fought a massive demon called the Titan, Hell's greatest champion, and now its massive skeleton litters the aptly named Titan's Realm region of Hell.
• Older Than They Look: Despite having the appearance of a man in the prime of his life, the Slayer's Testament claims "The age of his reckoning was uncounted" and "The scribes carved his name deep in the tablets of Hell across eons." Even if we assume he's from the current Earth's timeline originally, given Doom takes place in 2022 whereas 2016 is set in the year 2149, at the absolute minimum, he's over 150 years old.
• Ominous Walk: In cutscenes, he tends to slowly stomp towards his destination while everyone gives him a wide berth.
• One-Hit Kill: The Crucible blade in Eternal will one-shot any non-boss demon it hits. Even the likes of the Tyrant or Marauder will instantly fall to it (albeit impractical to perform in the latter case). The only exceptions to this rule are the Doom Hunters, which require two, one for each of their phases. The downside is that it only stores 3 charges at once, and charges are hard to come by.
• One-Man Army: Oh boy. This guy is possibly this trope given physical form. For starters, he singlehandedly crushes the Mars invasion in a matter of hours almost entirely on his own, killing absolutely everything sent his way with extreme prejudice, including several of Hell's strongest demons. In Eternal, he's essentially the sole effective soldier in the fight against a planetwide invasion from Hell, and he brings that invasion to a halt somewhere around the span of a day. No less than eight of the Video Game quotes on the trope page pertain to him, and he's earned them all.
• Only Sane Man: It's quite clear he does not buy a single syllable of the shaky self-satisfied Well-Intentioned Extremist malarkey the UAC keeps feeding him because said malarkey is also what keeps on provoking demonic invasions. To him, there are exactly three things in the world: Kill demons, save the world, and do it as efficiently as possible.
• The Paladin: He's the most exalted warrior of the Night Sentinels, who themselves are basically paladins but in another dimension. While he's a rather macabre take on this trope, he most certainly fits the general bill, what with his hatred for demons and his mission to repel the literal Legions of the Damned, to protect innocents from eternal damnation.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The Slayer inflicts brutality and pain on the denizens of Hell on such a destructive scale that even they are horrified at his actions. His enemy knows no mercy or pity, so he offers them neither.
• Perpetual Frowner: Though he has a Face Framed in Shadow and Hidden Eyes to emphasize ambiguity and a potential Audience Surrogate, what little can be seen of his face (especially once fans extracted it from the model) is a perpetual frowning grimace of sorts. It works surprisingly well with his Knight in Sour Armor status and disgust for the forces of Hell.
• Perpetual-Motion Monster: From the view of the demons at least - according to the Slayer's Testament, he has the ability to absorb the strength of the demons he slays, meaning he does not need to sleep, eat, or drink as long as he keeps on killing. His rampage has lasted ceaselessly throughout the eons, and it was only momentarily paused by collapsing a temple upon him and making him a Sealed Badass in a Can - once he escaped that, he got right back to killing demons without even a piss break. As the Ancient Gods DLCs reveal, there turns out to be a damn good reason for that^note As the Slayer is created from part of Davoth's own power, either through his conception or enhancement through the Divinity Machine, the Slayer essentially has a part of the very essence of both the Doom's franchise equivalent of Satan and God simultaneously, which allows him clearly to absorb the power from demons he kills (and presumably Hell itself whenever he's there for long enough) to keep himself going indefinitely—which also conveniently justifies the Glory Kill mechanic as well..
• Person of Mass Destruction: The UAC's final failsafe in the case of a demonic invasion is not to nuke their facility, but to let the Doom Slayer out of his coffin.
• Pet the Dog:
  • When Samuel Hayden tries to justify his actions in creating the mess over the intercom, the Doom Marine's response is to look down at the corpse of one of the victims, crack his knuckles, and smash the intercom in disgust.
  • When it becomes necessary to sacrifice VEGA, the Doom Slayer hesitates for a moment and makes a back-up of the AI (which he then keeps with him) before pushing the button.
  • Of the humans he interacts with on Phobos, he doesn't hurt them at all. Sure, he terrifies the crap out of them with his presence, and takes what he wants from them without bothering to ask, but he makes sure not to actually cause harm.
• Physical God: Played with - he's strong enough to rip apart demons that can shrug off rockets and ballistic slugs with his hands, can launch himself out of a railgun through the vacuum of space followed by the walls of a heavily armoured battle cruiser without any visible injury, and somehow even killed a Titan of Hell, whose corpse forms the environment, before he gets the Praetor Suit. That said, even with the Praetor Suit and all the upgrades he finds, he's still relatively fragile and needs to keep moving and killing to stand any sort of chance.
• Post-Victory Collapse: In The Ancient Gods Part Two, as the Slayer was created in the Davoth's image and was instilled by a fragment of the Dark Lord's power, killing Davoth also has a substantial effect on the Slayer himself and causes him to lose consciousness.
• The Power of Hate: With a bit of Gameplay and Story Integration, the extra lives system in Eternal are justified by his hatred for Hell being so great that, even if killed, he wills himself to live again out of sheer psychopathic hatred for the demons. Likewise, the health pickups are justified by his willpower being restored with every demon he kills.
• Powered Armor: His Praetor Suit, which was built/enhanced by a rogue demon to feed off Argent energy itself. On a more mundane level, it keeps track of his current vitals, provides a Heads-Up Display that feeds various info to the Doom Slayer, has a Comm Link system, and can integrate with external technology like VEGA.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: He's no longer mortal or fully human. He may not be a particularly pleasant individual but he's absolutely fighting for humanity, and the only people he has real issues with are ones who think they can take advantage of demons.
• Protagonist Title: Appropriately, the protagonist of DOOM is called the DOOM Slayer. Taken to exaggerated levels in Eternal. In her final audio log found in the Arc Complex level, Dr Elena Richardson begins to worship the Slayer as a messianic figure, outright declaring him to be more than just a man, and that "he is DOOM."
• Rage Against The Heaven: Literally in Eternal, where he invades Urdak, the Heaven of the Doom universe, to stop the Khan Maykr from resurrecting the Icon of Sin and unleash it upon Earth, slaughtering Maykr Drones and demons alike before he finally kills the Khan Maykr and then leaves Urdak behind him as a world of smoldering, burning ruins.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Despite being an incredibly intimidating killing machine built like a Belgian Blue, his collectibles are an ever-expanding Super-Deformed action figure collection of himself and his enemies. He also owns a number of Doom universe versions of Children's Literature (like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Green Eggs and Ham and The Giving Tree), Romance Novels, (like Fifty Shades of Grey and Eat, Pray, Love) and self-help books (like How to Win Friends and Influence People). With the Doomicorn skin or any variant thereof, he can quite literally wear pink. With the reveal that this Doom Slayer is indeed the original Doomguy, it confirms that he used to keep a pet rabbit named Daisy. Doom Slayer also wrote a book called "My Best Friend Daisy".
• Rebel Leader: According to the Codex, when the Night Sentinels started a civil war after discovering the true origin of Argent Energy, the Slayer led those who sided against the Khan Maykr, and was actually winning until the Betrayer sold them out.
• Reconstruction: Of the Super-Soldier trope - anyone who managed to become a One-Man Army who tore through The Legions of Hell with an unexplained Hyperspace Arsenal of guns wouldn't just be considered some random Mook for long. From the start of 2016, the Player Character is already Legendary in the Sequel, Shrouded in Myth, and considered to be The Scourge of God to the demons. In other words, he's become to them what Hell is for humanity.
• Red Baron: The demons refer to him as the "Doom Slayer".
• The Reveal: During the Sentinel Prime level of Eternal it's revealed he is in fact the Doomguy from the classic games who willingly remained in Hell at the end of Doom 64, only to somewhere along the line in his eons of battle end up in a portal leading to Argent D'nur.
• Road Runner PC: One of the Doom Slayer's greatest strengths (second only to his Super-Strength) is his incredible vertical and lateral movement - It allows him to keep his engagements to the range that is most effective at dealing with the individual foes, dodge projectiles and Ground Pounds and then close in for a Glory Kill once an opportunity presents itself. A double jump and a short-range borderline Flash Step don't seem like the most useful abilities when staring down the demonic hordes, but one of the reasons Marauders are such absolute bastards to slay is because they can keep up.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He really goes apeshit on the demonic forces for destroying the realm of Argent D'Nur, and goes on such a ground-shattering vengeful rampage that it makes the collective forces of Hell piss themselves in fear, and only ends when they manage by luck on their part to seal him away. And that only bought them time. In Eternal, it's learned that this unrelenting rage stems from being betrayed by the Deagic Council, who pretended to be on his side and the side of the Night Sentinels, but who used their evil magic to scatter them and leave them all to die at the hands of the ravening demons, on top of losing his second home.
• Sadist: Rather than going straight to the kill, if he gets his hands on a demon, he will gruesomely mutilate it just as the demons would do with him. Considering how numerous and powerful the demons are, this could be justified by him making damn sure it can't get back up to menace him while he's busy fighting others.
• Sanity Slippage: When he arrives in Argent D'Nur in the flashbacks in Eternal, he's so mentally drained from endlessly fighting demons that he can do nothing but shout about killing and maiming.
• The Scourge of God: The Doom Slayer is a vicious and unstoppable killing machine, but he only aims his violent rampage against the wicked demons of Hell, who are utterly terrified of him and openly consider him this trope. One Slayer's Testament says that he got his Super-Strength from "seraphim", implying that he may have literally been given his mission by God.
• Screw Destiny: Oh boy. If it's supposedly written that humanity will fuel Urdak, then it's time for the Slayer to do some book burning.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • The Slayer is told several times in Eternal that killing the Hell Priests is an unforgivable violation of Night Sentinel law. Considering that the Hell Priests are trying to help Hell consume Earth's people, the Slayer does not once give a crap about what the other Sentinels think; even after being told that killing Deag Grav within the borders of Sentinel Prime will cause him to completely lose his status among the surviving Night Sentinels, the Slayer unhesitatingly blows his head off with the Super Shotgun anyways; when a group of Sentinels arrive to apprehend him, he only stays long enough to give them a rather contemptuous look before leaving through a portal.
  • The Khan Maykr is rather aghast that the Doom Slayer would willingly defy millennia of tradition to foil Urdak and Hell's attempt to consume most of humanity. Again, the Slayer doesn't give a crap about this; screw tradition, he's going to save humanity anyways.
  • This is also the reason why he betrays Hayden/the Seraphim, in The Ancient Gods as he does not trust him at all to not screw him and subsequently all of humanity over, especially with an all too apparent power trip he was going through over the course of the story. Thus, he takes it into his own hands to destroy the Father's life sphere rather than let the Father get in the way of stopping Hell once and for all.
  • Basically, he doesn't care about the consequences of his actions all that much. Because he'll shoot that as well.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: Started as this before the events of the game - the Demons, realizing that nothing they could throw at him would kill him, opted to instead bury him under one of their temples by collapsing it on top of him, then binding the rubble into a sarcophagus and sealing it with every damn ward they had. When the UAC found his coffin, the demons fought as they had never fought before to keep them from taking it - and with good reason: Less than five seconds after being awoken, The Doom Slayer is already killing possessed with his bare hands. Hayden then Book Ends the game by sending the Slayer somewhere (no doubt with the ability to recall him, should things go south again) via the Tether system. This happens to him again at the end of The Ancient Gods Part 2 following the Final Battle with the Dark Lord.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: For a while, anyway. Fighting the hordes of Hell really did a number on his psyche, as shown by a flashback to the time he was Doomguy. By the time the Night Sentinels rescued him, he was reduced to a babbling wreck who sounded like he'd used one too many berserker packs, only speaking of demon genocide. And guts. Huge guts. By the time of the games, however, we have yet to see any sort of shell shock from him, implying that he has either moved past it, the Divinity Machine purged it, or he keeps it very well hidden beneath his Tranquil Fury.
• Shoulder Cannon: The Doom Slayer's upgraded Praetor Suit in Eternal now sports the Equipment Launcher on the left shoulder - a multipurpose ordinance delivery system capable of firing off short-ranged Flame Belches, Frag Grenades and Ice Bombs.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: He deals with anyone who tells him he can't do what he's doing by making it violently clear that nothing will stop him:
  • Both Novik and the Betrayer separately attempt to convince him that he can't stop the Khan Maykr alone; his response is to completely ignore them after a brief Death Glare.
  • Deag Ranak attempts to bargain with him, offering him power and assistance in exchange for his life. He doesn't even finish the offer before having his head lopped off by the Doomblade.
  • When Deag Grav tells the Slayer that he can't kill him on sacred ground, the Slayer just shoots the Priest's head off.
  • In response to the Dark Lord asking if the Slayer has any last words before he strikes him down, he simply impales the Dark Lord and responds with a Little "No".
• Silent Snarker: Eternal reveals that as Doomguy, he was at least capable of speaking (although by the time the Maykrs found him, he was more or less reduced to reciting his Madness Mantra), but in the present day, the Slayer does not speak a word, although he still grunts when hit. His actions and facial expressions basically do all the talking, such as him visibly having no patience for Samuel Hayden's tendencies to exploit Hell for resources and For Science!, and killing the Hell Priests mid-sentence. According to the codex, he is still capable of speaking, but simply chooses not to.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: By the events of Doom Eternal, he's exchanged the Praetor suit for a more personalized custom armor. This new suit has no bicep armor, revealing his gigantic muscles. Lampshaded as the description for the Original suit from 2016 is labelled "concealed guns".
• Smarter Than They Look: From first glance, it's very easy to dismiss him as a violent halfwit who is extremely proficient at killing but clueless when it comes to everything else; however, paying attention to the lore in both games will paint a much deeper picture, explaining to his moments of apparent stupidity or thoughtlessness:
  • He completely ignores Hayden's entreaties to preserve the Argent Energy filters, choosing instead to smash them in like a confused gorilla. He knew well before the UAC ever discovered it just what Argent Energy was, and more importantly, what it could cause if left unchecked. The sequel proves him right on both counts.
  • In the same vein, Hayden's pleas that shutting down Argent Energy would cause an energy crisis only fall on deaf ears. The reason Argent D'Nur fell was because it became dependent on the stuff, and the Slayer has seen first-hand that, bad as an energy crisis may be, Hell on Earth is ten times worse. Indeed, going by the staggering casualties listed in Eternal's intro and the hideously-ruined state of Earth, he is again proven right.
  • When told that Hayden's wrecked chassis needs to be carefully removed from stasis, he simply grabs it and hauls it into a portal. Given that Hayden was undoubtedly a high-priority target for the demons, the Slayer probably guessed that something would be coming to get him, and understood that taking the time to get him out was far more dangerous a proposition than just grabbing him. Sure enough, the Marauder rolls up to the scene literally moments afterwards. Additionally, Hayden's actions in the first game were Teeth-Clenched Teamwork at best, and outright betrayal at worst, so Hayden hadn't exactly given the Doomslayer reason to be gentle with him.
  • He has an extensive library in the Fortress of Doom, and he was somehow able to get VEGA - a fully sentient AI - up and running again from a presumably-bare bones copy kept on his suit.
  • He never hesitates or has any visible issues dealing with technology at any point; while using computers and other devices he doesn't want to smash, he has no problems whatsoever.
  • He was the champion of the Night Sentinels, and by all accounts, he did an excellent job leading them. If not for the Betrayer stabbing him and his True Companions in the back, they would have won.
• Sole Survivor: Regardless if he's from an Alternate Universe Earth or Argent D'Nur originally, he didn't just lose the entire demon-fighting order he fought with, his entire homeworld was destroyed by Hell, leaving him seemingly the only one left. Then it turns out there are surviving Night Sentinels. Unfortunately, the ones that survived are working with the Hell Priests. The Ancient Gods - Part 2 subverts this, as it turns out that there are a fair few uncorrupted Night Sentinels scattered around Argent D'Nur and they rally to help him assault Hell for the last time.
• Soul Eating: As revealed in Eternal that Argent Energy is made from the souls of those killed by Demons, him absorbing the Argent Energy Cells for power means that he's been consuming the souls of the other victims of Hell.
• Space Marine: Despite his Mysterious Past, his pressurized Powered Armor and records of his campaigns across the plains of Hell got him the moniker "the DOOM Marine" from the UAC researchers who studied him. In Eternal, it's revealed that he was once Doomguy, the lone human space marine who killed his way through legions of demons even before becoming a Sentinel.
• Spanner in the Works: The empowering he underwent by the Seraphim as described in Doom? That was actually one Maykr going against the Khan's wishes to create a reserve backup plan in case things went sour. The Khan Maykr was displeased with this and exiled the Seraphim, but kept the Slayer around until he too was in the way of her plans with Hell. What she didn't count on was his absolute refusal to die, which resulted in the long-term destruction of her plans from the inside out.
• Spell My Name With An S: Is it "Doom Slayer", with a space, or "Doomslayer", all one word? Official materials largely use the former, but the latter has also been used, so it seems either is permissible. Not unlike how older instances alternate between the fan-ascended nickname of "Doomguy" and the nondescript "Doom Marine".
• The Stoic: Though bubbling with rage on the inside, he barely emotes outside of a grunt.
• Strong and Skilled: In Doom Eternal, the Slayer is not only super strong and able to use heavy weapons, but he knows how to use them to handicap his enemies and eliminate them easier.
• Suddenly Voiced: He gets a voice in Eternal, but only for grunts of pain when he gets hit. Naturally, it's incredibly deep and guttural. However, Flashbacks to his first arrival on Sentinel Prime later in the game reveal he was perfectly capable of speaking, but was rapidly losing his mind by the time the Sentinels found him and seems to have stopped speaking altogether by the time the Seraphim empowered him through the Divinity Machine. He finally says his first (and only) word in the present day, when the Dark Lord asks him if he has anything to say before ending Davoth's life. The Slayer's response? No.
• Super-Soldier: When the Night Sentinels first find him, he is merely a Badass Normal who took on Hell's armies by himself for decades. After some time spent training with them, he rises to become one of their best warriors, but when the Seraphim imbues him with the power of the Maykrs, he becomes far greater than any human or Sentinel.
• Super-Strength: He's strong enough to liquefy a zombified human's skull with just one hand while shackled to a table, rip the limbs off bullet-resistant demons, and tear apart pieces of metal equipment and armour with just his hands and feet. He's also able to punch two subway cars a good 40 feet or so.
• Super-Speed: Very downplayed compared to some of the other speedsters in fiction, but between his ability to Double Jump, Flash Step / Videogame Dashing, his enduring stamina, it's hard to argue that his mobility isn't beyond human. Also, despite being built like a refrigerator his base run speed is still 12 m/s or 27 miles per hour. This is impossible for a real human to reach for any sustained length (Usain Bolt's 100-meter dash world record is 9.6 seconds or 10.4 m/s, while his 800-meter run time is 125 seconds or 6.4 m/s), and the Doom Slayer can do it easily and infinitely. The fact that he can both accelerate to that speed near-instantly and run sideways and backwards at nearly the same speed is also solidly superhuman (far more than the run speed itself in fact), and a big part of why he's so deadly in-game. On top of that, this is his speed while wearing heavy armor and carrying lots of guns. Even a standard soldier's load would render the fittest real-world humans incapable of little more sustained speed than a jog, much less the Powered Armor and piles of BFGs he carries.
• Super-Toughness: The Slayer can survive being shot out of railguns like a human bullet, straight into the wall of a building with enough force to shatter the wall and break through it, and only needing a second afterwards to steady himself. This same toughness also allows him to take hits that would reduce a normal human to paste, even if he's much better served when dodging the hit instead.
• Sympathy for the Devil: In The Ancient Gods, he seems to show some level of pity for Samuel - or Samur - after defeating him. While he briefly considers killing him, he is particularly hesitant to do so, simply looking at his mutilated transfigured body, and ultimately allowing The Father to take him away. As Samuel was essentially his Mission Control for a game and a half, it could be inferred that the Slayer ultimately regrets what the guy had become, even despite their differences.
• Talk to the Fist: In Eternal, this is how he deals with the Hell Priests. When they're extolling the power of Hell or how they're supposedly untouchable, the Slayer shows how wrong this assumption is by attacking them mid-sentence. He tears off the Deag Nilox's head with his bare hands, cuts off the second Priest's head with the Doomblade, and shoots the third one point-blank in the face with his Super Shotgun.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: It's clear that the Doom Slayer does not trust Samuel Hayden. But he's forced to work with him to stop the demonic invasion. Hayden likewise doesn't appreciate the Slayer's somewhat permanent approach to shutting down operations but admits that the Slayer is possibly the only person who can stop them.
• Telekinesis: One of his cut Imp Glory Kills in Doom (2016) was this. He'd channel Argent Energy into his arm, lift the Imp, crush it into a ball, then release it and explosively scatter its body parts.
• Terror Hero: By the events of Doom Eternal, his mere presence causes any human in the vicinity to visibly tremble and get them to keep their distance. He is sufficiently intimidating that he can even confiscate a UAC guard's plasma rifle with little more than a token protest that quickly stops when he delivers a Death Glare at the poor guy. Except for the guy at the ARC Complex though, who looks up to the Slayer like a fanboy rather than overtly terrified of him.
• Time Abyss: The Slayer's Testament claims that no one even knows how long he's been slaughtering the forces of Hell, but his name is etched across the demons' history for eons. (An eon, in scientific terms, equals to a billion years.)
• To Hell and Back: He goes to Hell and back three times that the player can see (when Olivia opens the portal at the Argent Tower, to retrieve the Crucible, and then to shut down The Well), and is said to have done it at least once before, which is how he became so damn scary to the demons.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Not that he wasn't already awesome from the start, mind you, but the collected lore in Eternal states that his Night Sentinel training and Seraphim enhancements turned him from the "brutal, but crude" Doomguy to the Great Slayer, the greatest Sentinel to ever live. Furthermore, the Slayer seems to achieve higher ranks as he continues fighting, becoming a Titan by the time he encounters the Icon of Sin, and would then be classified as a Primeval as of The Ancient Gods.
  • In terms of gameplay, it's zig-zagged in Eternal. While he has substantially more options in his arsenal to play with, he starts with a severely lowered ammo count, his basic punch has been inexplicably weakened (to the point that it barely hurts an ambient demon), and he takes more damage from attacks, practically forcing him to use those expanded options just to stay toe to toe with his opponents. However, he has his Combat Shotgun from the get-go instead of the piddly little pistol he began with in 2016.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: He's gone to Hell multiple times and broke out every time (the ending crawl from the original game even says he's "too tough for Hell to contain"). It gets to the point where the demons are downright scared of him and try hard to keep him OUT of Hell.
• Touched by Vorlons: According to the Slayer's Testaments, he was granted superhuman abilities from the "Seraphim" (revealed in Eternal to be one of the Maykrs, particularly, Samur, who is hiding under the persona of Samuel Hayden).
• Trauma Button: The Slayer is extremely traumatized at the mere thought of demons and any he even thinks, sees or hears about one of their kind he will let loose all of his rage.
• Tranquil Fury: He never cries out in rage, not even once. But his mannerisms and the fact that he dispatches every demon, monster or zombie that gets in his way brutally and without a shred of mercy indicates that he is very, very pissed. In Eternal, only the part of his face visible through his visor is his eyes, which are locked in a permanent, enraged Death Glare. His state as this is especially pronounced when his present-day silence is put into direct contrast against his gibbering mania when he was first found by the Night Sentinels.
• Unscrupulous Hero: He is extremely ruthless in combat and shows absolutely zero mercy... if you’re a demon or working with them. Otherwise, he still has No Social Skills but is still fighting for the good of mankind.
• Unstoppable Rage: He is the Sole Survivor of his realm, and considering how he utterly brutalises any demon or possessed that get in his way as well as his lengthy rampage before he was sealed away, one could agree that the experience has left him with... anger issues. Eternal even makes it a gameplay mechanic, with extra lives being him getting so angry he literally refuses to die.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In Eternal, it's revealed that as the original Doomguy, he was brought to the Night Sentinels maddened and delirious, constantly rambling about the demons he's fought for so long. It's because of this that the Maykrs grew interested in finding said demons, and corrupted the Sentinels with the promise of Argent Energy once they found them, which ultimately ended up with the events of 2016 and Eternal unfolding. The Slayer isn't simply destroying the UAC's Argent Energy out of hatred for Hell, he's preventing the same mistake from happening again, to his own people.
• Voice Grunting: In Doom Eternal, the Slayer makes grunts of pain whenever he takes damage. He's otherwise still presented as a Silent Protagonist.
• Walking Armory: Downplayed come Eternal, he gets a shoulder-mounted cannon capable of firing several types of munitions, and the Doomblade attached to his left wrist - the rest of his equipment are still stored in a Hyperspace Arsenal.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • The Doom Slayer will stop at nothing to stop the forces of Hell from consuming another world, even if it means undoing any good the UAC could have done with Argent Energy. Earth is stated to be suffering from a serious energy crisis, but the Slayer doesn't care or doesn't think the UAC can keep the evil in its can forever. Come Eternal, he's proven right.
  • Come the Ancient Gods Downloadable Content, he ends up both destroying the Father's life sphere and screwing over Samur the Seraphim, as well as going out of his way to personally resurrect Davoth the Dark Lord just to make sure he both doesn't get screwed over himself and can finally end everything by killing the latter. Despite awakening what seems to be an Evil Counterpart to himself, with the implication the Dark Lord's mere physical existence will make everything worse, and he just burned his bridges with all but a single lone UAC intern still willing to help him, it might appear he just bit off more than he could chew; but ultimately at the conclusion of Part Two, he succeeds.
• World's Best Warrior / World's Strongest Man: To quote Samuel Hayden:
  Hayden: The Slayer has no equal.
• Worthy Opponent: It's clear from the tone of the Slayer's Testament recordings found in Hell that, as much as the demons might fear and loath him, they hold the Doom Slayer in a twisted kind of respect for the pain and destruction he brings, even if it's directed at them.
• Would Hit a Girl: Several of his opponents (namely, Whiplash demons, Spider Mastermind and Khan Maykr) are female, yet he will rip and tear them just like any other enemy of his.
• Would Not Shoot a Civilian: The UAC's casual dismissal of their civilian casualties has him visibly trembling with rage. Eternal shows him walking through a UAC base on Phobos with living humans panicking over the invasion (and over him) and doesn't hurt a hair on any of their heads even if he's more than a little disrespectful with them. Not that this extends to any Demon of Human Origin though - it doesn't matter what it was, even if it was a civilian; if it's a demon now, it's dying. In fact, his entire crusade against Hell began because he assaulted a superior officer who ordered him to kill civilians.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: He can absorb strength from the fallen demons, which, in-game, is represented through the glory kill system. Against tougher enemies, he doesn't even need to kill them to absorb their strength - simply dealing damage is enough to heal him.
• Zero-Approval Gambit: In Eternal, before the Gladiator boss fight in Sentinel Prime, Deag Grav informs the Slayer that if he kills him as he did the other Hell Priests and thus spills Sentinel blood within the city, he'll lose all of his sovereignty and respect among the surviving Night Sentinels. The Slayer isn't fazed by this and, in the aftermath of the fight, kills him anyway with a Super Shotgun blast that blows his head into chunks. As soon as this happens, several Night Sentinels run into the arena he's in, slowly inching closer towards him with their now red-tipped spears pointed in his direction— a clear sign that they no longer tolerate his presence. The Slayer simply leaves, no doubt believing that putting a dent in Hell's invasion of Earth was well worth the cost of his goodwill with the Sentinels. However, given that these are the same Night Sentinels who willingly sided with the Khan Maykr even after learning of her pact with Hell, it's likely that he doesn't really care if they respect him or not.

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