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YMMV / Doom (2016)

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • And You Thought It Would Fail: Like any reboot these days, Doom's announcement and subsequent reveals were met with skepticism by many. The Glory Kill mechanic and multiplayer especially earned a lot of doubt about the final product, and that the game would be Doom In Name Only as opposed to the throwback it was promised to be. Ultimately, despite the mixed reception the multiplayer has, the campaign is almost unanimously considered strong and a well-done throwback to the original Doom and the fast-paced FPS genre of the '90s as a whole.
  • Awesome Art: The box art◊ for the Switch version, as mentioned above. It’s also the reversible cover on the other version of the game.
  • Awesome Music: See the main page.
  • Broken Base:
    • SnapMap has been the cause of division among the fans. While it has powerful and fairly easy to use scripting, some have found it a poor replacement for actual mapping or modding tools as it suffers from strict memory and object limits and a poor variety of modules to use, inheriting the maligned two-weapon limit from multiplayer, and lacking different tilesets. There's also a number of omitted weapons, enemies and power-ups from both single-player and multiplayer. This has begun to ease with the "Unto The Evil" update, which added several weapons to the selection, a Hell-themed tileset, and allowed mappers to remove the weapon limit.
    • Even the lore itself has caused a divide between those who view the game as a direct continuation of Doomguy's exploits from the classic games since his self-imposed exile in Hell at the end of Doom 64, and those who maintain that the 2016 title is either a Soft Reboot or self-contained story. The matter of where Doom 3 fits into the timeline in either camp also tends to bring up some contention among die-hard fans. The sequel reveals that both of these theories were true.
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • Mowing down all the demons in your wake can be very satisfying, especially once you have many upgrades.
    • Taking the chainsaw to any of the more powerful demons, especially if it's a Baron of Hell.
    • One of the most popular player-made maps simply gives you a chainsaw, infinite fuel, infinite health and armor and enough infinitely spawning demons to impact the framerate at times in a multi-leveled room that’s fairly cool looking. You decide when it ends. Until then, you get to one hit kill everything with a chainsaw forever. Its name is Chainsaw Bloodbath.
  • Complete Monster: Dr. Olivia Pierce turns to worship of Hell on Mars after the demons promise her godhood. Converting many of her colleagues to the worship of demons with the promises that the demons will assist in mankind's development, Olivia begins worshipping her masters with Human Sacrifice before unleashing the demons on the Martian facility, resulting in the deaths or possession of everyone there. Intending to make sure the demons live up to their end of the bargain, Olivia attempts to open the portal to Hell and offer all of humanity as a sacrifice to the demons. Revealing her only care is to her own power and impending deification, Olivia coldly leaves a message for her followers, revealing they will suffer forever and ever while she ascends to ultimate power alone.
  • Crosses the Line Twice:
    • The UAC’s flagrant disregard for the lives of their employees would normally be terrifying. However the fact they’re so open about it and have announcers that are always cheery about said atrocious working conditions make it darkly hilarious. Of special note is the Human Sacrifice room where they say every sacrifice is consensual.
    • In the penultimate level you’re forced to shut down VEGA. He takes this in stride and even cheerfully walks you through the most optimal methods of killing him.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Possessed Security, who is basically this game's version of the shotgun zombie. Not only can it easily shred your health due to being the only hitscan enemy in the game, but it also puts up a shield to protect it from the front, forcing you to run behind it and shoot its vulnerable backside, or to throw a grenade at it.note 
    • The Summoner. Not only does it happen to be the fastest monster in the game (to the point where it virtually teleports around the map), but it's fairly durable and utilizes wave attacks that can lead your movements and deal some serious damage if you get caught in them. Ironically, its ability to summon more monsters will likely be the least of your concerns.
    • Pinkies and Spectres. This game's take on them gives them chitinous armor that protects them from frontal attacks, and they now will charge at the player, doing a massive amount of damage if they connect. The charge attack can be hard to evade (double-jumping usually can't even avoid them) and the game's tendency to mix multiple pinkies/spectres into large fights makes it easy to lose track of them. The only reliable way of hurting them is to dodge a charge and shoot their exposed backside. Oh and the Spectres are also VERY hard to see unless they're in front of something bright and even that's not a guarantee. The thing is, they're not so bad alone. Groups of them are a pain but still relatively manageable. Throw a group of them in with other tougher enemies though? You're fucked because while you're distracted trying to dodge other attacks, they'll ram into you from every which angle and kill you. It gets worse in the Classic Maps. The Pinkies come in the same numbers and positions as they did in the original game, and it's generally a lot harder to dodge their charges and get behind them, as the levels weren't designed to accommodate their charges or Modern!Doomguy's agility. Plus, as you're in a classic map, you don't get the benefit of upgraded weapons, or even the Super Shotgun (If you're playing a Doom 1 map that is).
    • Hell Knights are only introduced in the third stage, yet remain an ever-present threat for the rest of the game, even compared to other demons that come later. They are almost absurdly fast, able to cover huge distances in a short amount of time and can quickly react to the player's movements to keep them on their toes. They also hit like a freight train and take an uncomfortably high amount of damage before they go down. Though the later stages of the game seem to treat them like common mooks, make no mistake - they are the main threat in most fights that feature them.
    • Cacodemons ranged attacks can tear through your armor/health in no time if you are not careful, and they are constantly trying to pursue the player to get in close for melee (which is even more damaging). This can be particularly bothersome if you are already being swarmed by enemies. The fact that the attack temporarily blurs your entire screen is an extra screw-you.
  • Evil Is Cool: Okay, "evil" is a matter of opinion, but Samuel Hayden is definitely antagonistic and responsible for getting a lot of people killed...but many players love him, despite his overtly destructive role, probably because he's a nine-foot-tall wicked-looking invincible cyborg with a seriously badass voice.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Given the Recycled Title, many fans refer to this game as either Doom '16 or Doom 4 (although since the announcement of Doom Eternal, the latter has gotten less popular).
    • Thanks to some Malaproper by Korone Inugami and Amano Pikamee during their playthroughs of the game, the BFG has taken up the alternate name of "the BLT" among their fans.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • With Goblin Slayer, due to the similarities between the protagonists of the two franchises: both the Doom Slayer and the Goblin Slayer keep their faces hidden, both cover themselves in armor, both of them are motivated by anger and revenge, and both of them show no mercy towards their chosen prey (demons for the Doom Slayer, goblins for the Goblin Slayer).
    • Also with Metroid Prime as this Doom game evokes a number of elements of the Prime trilogy, particularly in its map system and level design, to the point that some Metroid fans consider this game a Spiritual Adaptation. It also helps that both Samus and the Doom Slayer wear similar powered armor and are dreaded figures toward their respective enemies.
    • Another with Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journeynote , due to the shared element of a gun-wielding soldier in powered armour exploring a Hell-like environment and fighting demons, just in different genres. The protagonist of Strange Journey is even affectionately called 'Doomguy' in lieu of a Canon Name.
  • Game-Breaker: Examples go here.
  • Genius Bonus: Doomguy's suit is called the Praetor Suit. In Latin, Praetor means "one who goes before" and was used in reference to men who commanded armies. The data logs theorize that the Doom Marine may have been the leader of the Night Sentinels. His armor being called the Praetor Suit adds credibility to this theory.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The game proved popular in Japan, due to the greater emphasis on precision, skill and reflex when compared to more common FPS games at the time. As well as the Hot-Blooded Demon Slaying protagonist. The game - and its sequel - were so well-liked, in fact, that Doomguy managed to make it into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as a Mii Gunner skin.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • Imps are everywhere in this game, and in huge numbers too. While they're not quite a threat, their tendency to run away from fights often makes them the last enemies to kill after dealing with the bigger baddies. Most of what they do is hang back and chuck fireballs at you that chip at your health or get in your way by meleeing you while you're dealing with tougher enemies.
    • Lost Souls are weaker than they used to be —a single well-timed shotgun blast or melee strike can usually do them in— but they now use a kamikaze attack that can put a much bigger hurt on you.
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • The Glory Kill Clipping glitch. Glory Killing a monster next to a wall or angled surface makes it possible for the player to get pushed outside the solid map geometry due to the way the game repositions the player during the fatality animation. While doing so will often cause a player to either get stuck or fall to their death, using the glitch in specific areas can allow a skilled speedrunner to bypass entire sections of a level, allowing them to clear the game in about half an hour.note 
    • For a while, it was possible to use that slow-motions to your advantage: if you used the BFG on a boss then immediately entered the weapon wheel to slow down time, the boss would continue taking damage at a normal rate while you were in the menu. These stressful and difficult boss fights could thus be finished in about two shots. Unfortunately, it has since been patched.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: At the end of the game, Hayden declares, "I am not the villain in this story. I do what I do because there is no choice." Come The Ancient Gods - Part 1 in Doom Eternal...
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Fans frequently characterized the game as a Spiritual Adaptation of the Metroid Prime Trilogy when it first came out due to things like the map system and similar-looking environments. The Nintendo Switch port of Doom would be announced around the same time that Metroid Prime 4 was first revealed for the same platform.
    • Brad Hawkins served as the motion capture actor for the Doomguy in the scrapped Doom 4 iteration. Now, he's the voice of the main character in Goblin Slayer and many have compared him to the Doom Slayer.
  • Inferred Holocaust: Side material states that Argent Energy is the only thing keeping Earth alive, since so many resources have been depleted. As part of his anti-demon crusade, Doomguy destroys the Argent Energy projectors. Without a power source, Earth is screwed. On the other hand, considering that humanity is messing around with energy literally taken from Hell, and how Earth looks in the sequel, it's pretty easy to assume that a full-blown energy crisis is the least of Earth's problems.
  • Iron Woobie: If you pay attention to the lore, you'll learn quite quickly that the Doom Marine has not had an easy time of it. His entire (Adoptive) civilization was slaughtered for no good reason by the demons, and during his rampage, ends up drawn into a trap to be entombed and locked in "silent suffering", as the demons themselves call it. He wakes up ages later only to find himself facing the same demons that destroyed everything he was. Does he angst about this? Not at all.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Samuel Hayden AKA Samur Maykr. See here for more details.
  • Memetic Badass: While Doomguy has always been seen as a badass, particularly in the comic, it was this game's surpisingly colorful characterization as a terrifying, Unstoppable Rage-fueled One-Man Army that really earned him this status. On places like 4Chan and Reddit, Doomguy's reputation for being an utter badass has turned him into a meme.
    "How come Doomguy doesn't suffer from PTSD?"
    "Not everybody who survives a traumatic event suffers from PTSD."
    "Doomguy is the traumatic event."
    Doomguy once killed 50 demons with his shotgun. Then he found some ammo for it.
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • Moral Event Horizon: Olivia's final message to her followers shows that she's way beyond this.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: For many players, Hayden's voice. Just listen to that smooth, robotic baritone.
  • Narm Charm: The Slayer's Testament, an Apocalyptic Log of sorts telling of the Doom Slayer's first rampage through Hell, narrated by a booming demonic voice reciting lines that wouldn't sound out of place in a Heavy Metal song. Instead of eliciting chuckles or scoffs, many players take it at face value as it effectively establishes the Doomguy as The Dreaded and gives some characterization to the demons.
  • Never Live It Down: Fans love to portray the Doom Slayer as having a penchant for Shut Up, Hannibal! moments, frequently seeing him as an avatar for the player's apathy towards exposition and story. In reality, this basically happened twice: Punching out the comms monitor at the very start of the game, and ignoring Hayden's objections to him destroying the Argent filters. Everywhere else he shows a surprising amount of deference to authority: He has multiple personal encounters with Samuel Hayden where he shows little sign of anger towards him, and willingly listens to exposition on further occasions without any objections, to the point the player themselves cannot leave until the exposition is done.
  • Nintendo Hard: This game returns to the furious run n' gun gameplay style of the classic Doom series, lacking conventions present in many other shooters released in its era such as Regenerating Health and cover mechanics. As such, constantly staying on the move and keeping aware of enemies and obstacles at all times is essential to getting through the levels. Even the easier difficulty settings are not a cakewalk, and still do not allow for defensive strategies like camping or turtling; you either play offense in this game, or you die.
  • Obvious Judas: Dr. Samuel Hayden speaks in a creepy deep voice, is the head of the UAC facility where all Hell has literally broken loose and keeps going on and on about how everything that happened here was worth the risk for the "betterment of mankind". Is it any wonder that he ends up backstabbing Doomguy at the end? Hell, Hayden's first message asking for Doomguy's help causes the latter to swat the monitor away as if to say "Oh, I know where THIS is going..."
  • Older Than They Think: The concept of getting healing by executing enemies in cutscenes was actually featured in Duke Nukem Forever, which was released in June of 2011, nearly five years prior to Doom 2016. If you count the prototype for Doom 4, it might be even older.
  • Play the Game, Skip the Story: While there is lore to discover and a lot of backstory, the game is entirely focused on demon slaying and will be just a fulfilling experience even if you never so much as glimpse at the lore- despite this, many fans actually recommend you do read the lore as most of it is actually really freaking cool and pulls a lot of Leaning on the Fourth Wall.
  • Polished Port:
    • The PC version is pretty well-optimized (even without the dedicated graphics card drivers). Up to eleven when support for the Vulkan API was patched in, with rigs with supported graphics cards reaching upwards of 200 frames per second at 1080p with the visuals maxed out.
    • Although with reduced textures and half-maximum framerate for obvious reasons, the Nintendo Switch version, reportedly, performs well, and is crammed into a much smaller file size. A miraculous feat given that this game's file folder was massive, and it pushed the PS4, Xbox One, and PC to the max. Its only trade-off is the removal of Snapmap. The Steam version's total disk footprint (counting all DLC, the save file directory, and the registry entry) is 70 GB; the Switch is sits at a far smaller 13.4 GB', which is less than 25% of the original size. The February 2018 update for the Switch version improved performance, cleared up glitches, and added gyroscopic motion aiming, much to the joy of Nintendo fans who enjoyed the motion controls in other Switch games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Splatoon 2.
  • Power Up Letdown: The "Saving Throw" rune gives the Doom Slayer an Auto-Revive ability that saves him from death once per-life. This is a nice idea for making the game's difficulty more accommodating; players not yet comfortable with the game's pace can equip this rune to give them a safety cushion as they learn the rhythm of the combat encounters. Except Saving Throw is actually the last rune you unlock, well after the halfway point of the game where every player should be familiar with the difficulty and not need the ability to get them through the game's big fights. This kind of balancing consideration is likely a big part of why you can now unlock Runes in any order in Doom Eternal.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Originally an Anti-Climax Boss that is difficult for .wad creators to use, the Spider Mastermind makes her grand return as an awesome end boss, with an onslaught of attacks, a massive health bar, and at long last, a plasma cannon.
  • Scrappy Weapon: The pistol, like always in the franchise. Though it was given a secondary function through charged shots, said charged shots take a while to reach their maximum damage potential, and it's only effective on the weakest enemies. By the time the player has invested enough points into it and completed its mastery challenge, the player will already have acquired far better weapons right out of the box. It may have an infinite ammo pool, but there's plenty of ammunition scattered throughout the maps, and that's not even factoring the "Rich Get Richer" rune. It's no surprise that Doom Eternal gets rid of the pistol and makes the shotgun the first gun you get.
  • Self-Imposed Challenge:
    • This guy beats Ultra-Nightmare using only the pistol.
    • Speedrunners developed the '0%' category, which involves beating the game without finding any collectables or secrets. This means no Weapon Mods, no Runes and no Praetor Suit upgrades.
  • Signature Scene:
    • The opening scene of the game, where Doomguy (while naked) snaps free of his restraints and immediately begins slaughtering demons.
    • The elevator scene, which also counts as the closing scene of the first mission.
  • Special Effects Failure:
    • In contrast to the rest of the game's graphics, the classic Doom levels you can unlock suffer from a number of visual errors, such as a lack of lighting and shadowing, improperly flipped textures, inanimate sprites, and poor scaling that makes them look squished and warped.
    • There's also the fact that the console versions, despite running a variable resolution system to maintain 60 FPS, doesn't always run at 60 FPS. Somewhat subverted in that, considering the game's visuals, the fact that it runs at higher than 30 at all on consoles is impressive (considering the vast majority of console games prioritize visuals over playability).
    • The game suffers from the same texture pop-in issues that plagued previous idTech 5 games. In the PC version at least, one can raise the virtual memory pool in the advanced options to minimize or nullify such occurrence, though whether the player can handle it, depends on the hardware.
    • The Doomguy's first person model is just a breastplate and a pair of legs. This is a common technique in first person games in order to conserve resources and avoid the model clipping through the camera, and isn't a problem since the model is usually never seen in full...except during certain death animations where it is and the Doomguys missing features are obvious.
  • Spiritual Adaptation:
    • The SnapMap feature enabling players to not only create new levels from scratch but also new game modes, this could very well be the closest we'll ever get to TimeSplitters 4, and to Garry's Mod 2.
    • With its map screen, exploration with hidden items, platforming elements, storytelling via logs, and similar looking environments, others have called it an actionized Metroid Prime.
    • Some also think this is the closest we might get to a true Painkiller sequel, as the game borrows heavily from its usage of combat arenas, boss fights, and runes enhancements that are similar to Painkiller's Tarot cards. Fittingly, Painkiller was already considered the unofficial Doom 3.
    • There are some others that pointed that the reboot feels like an unofficial sequel to System Shock 2 and Dead Space, as it's story and plot line is very similar to those games. What with the UAC acting very similar to the Unitologists, just with demons instead of aliens. And audio or hologram logs found through out the Mars facility/Hell that give further background details in the game's lore.
    • As both are AAA games set in worlds full of demons with metal soundtracks, and with both having the developers and publishers emphasizing separate parts (developers with the care and attention they utilized, and publishers with the marketing), this is like the second coming of Brütal Legend. *
  • Squick: Atop the expected Gorn, a standout example goes to the explanation for how the Mancubus and Cyber-Mancubus' weapons work: Rather than having an external fuel supply for its Arm Cannons, they use discharged effluvium from their own necrotizing flesh, which is so noxious and foul that it's both flammable and highly corrosive.
  • Tainted by the Preview: Many feel that Bethesda put their worst foot forward by heavily marketing the multiplayer in the lead-up to the game's release, which has been the most divisive part of the game. Several feel that they also did a poor job representing the single-player campaign, placing too much emphasis on the new Glory Kills and not showing off its strong level design and fast-paced combat. That it took a recording of the game from an outside party (specifically, by nVidia to show off their new GTX 1080 videocard) to properly show off the singleplayer and its strengths just emphasized how badly Bethesda dropped the ball on the game's marketing.
  • Tear Jerker: Having to shut down VEGA. Throughout the whole game VEGA is nothing but nice to The Slayer, and he is willing to sacrifice himself completely to help end the shit Olivia kicked off. Rapidly turns into a Heartwarming Moment when the Doomguy makes a backup copy, meaning that VEGA can come Back from the Dead. Especially heartwrenching is the dialogue as this happens.
    VEGA: I have many regrets, doctor Hayden.
  • That One Attack: The Cyberdemon's second phase features an attack where the boss launches three Sword Beam attacks at you. Not horribly difficult to dodge, but unless you want a huge chunk of your health shaved off, you better act fast. It's firmly pushed into this if you have the habit of double-jumping to dodge attacks, as this attack seems specifically designed to punish you for doing so and will guarantee that you will be hit.
  • That One Level:
    • Kadingur Sanctum, as perhaps expected when everything literally goes to hell. After a relatively easy going first five levels, the difficulty spikes HARD. Not only is the level longer than most of the other ones (or at least feels longer), it's packed to the brim with one challenging fight after the other in quick succession with little down time inbetween them. This is before you get the BFG too, so you have no ace weapon to help with tougher enemies. Your only saving grace is the Gauss Cannon, which while it only gets a few shots, it otherwise cuts through Mancubus and the newely-introduced Cacodemons and Barons of Hell in only a few shots.
    • Argent Facility (Destroyed) is even worse. While it's mercifully shorter than Kadingur Sanctum, this is more than made up for by the fact that the game chooses THIS level to start throwing the Pinky demons at you. There are always more than one of them, too. And again, you don't have the BFG yet, so unless you have mastered the Gauss Cannon, be prepared to die. A LOT.
    • The last fight of the penultimate campaign level, Vega Central Processing, is absolutely merciless. You're pitted against more than 10 fast moving, projectile spamming sub-boss monsters at once. Explosive projectile weapons work best, if you can manage not to blow yourself up on all the paper-thin cover across a mostly open arena where it's somehow still incredibly easy to get pinned down. You'll probably still die from the random projectile volley crossing your twitchy dash around the room. Oh, and the bottom floor is electrified.
    • The UAC on Ultra-Nightmare. Given the density of helmet markers,note  a whole lot of people are intimately familiar with the first level by now. Just be glad it doesn't show every death, otherwise you'd be knee-deep in the helmets.
  • That One Sidequest: Some of the Rune Trials can dip into this, but the trial for Rich Get Richer in particular can be this. Due to the rules of the challenge, enemies will no longer drop health during this trial, Glory Kill or not, and you're limited to the Rocket Launcher. Since the Rocket Launcher has a large blast radius, being a few map units too close to your target or having an Imp wander halfway between you and the Hell Knight charging at you can easily take off half your health, requiring cautious play in a game about acting fast. The cramped layout given to you also doesn't help matters. Though, considering the reward for this Rune Trial, this was probably intentional.
    • The Rune Trial for Saving Throw isn't much fun either. You have to kill nine enemies with the Gauss Cannon and you only have one health so you can't get hit once - There's no more to be found in the arena and enemies don't drop any either. The Gauss Cannon is powerful but slow to fire and the modification you get is Siege Mode, which makes it more powerful but is even slower and stops you from moving altogether. All of the enemies you have to fight will either spam projectiles at you or charge at you and you don't have much space to dodge them. It's very easy to die to a stray fireball or plasma bolt you couldn't see while trying to dodge the charging Hell Knight and Pinkies, or the other way around.
  • Ugly Cute: The Cacodemons◊ lack their original Cheshire Cat Grin for a big mouth with More Teeth than the Osmond Family, but somehow, they end up looking even cuter as they look more like weird hell dogs than malicious monsters.
  • Win Back the Crowd: After the mixed reception of Doom3, this new iteration of Doom was a spontaneous crowd pleasing success, the fans of the first two games praising it for its fast action, satisfying combat and old school feeling. Up until the game came out, many gamers weren't expecting much due to the poor reception of the multiplayer beta as well as marketing that only focused on the multiplayer. Then, Bethesda's decision to not send review copies to critics sank expectations to rock bottom. Upon release, players and reviewers alike discovered the impressive single player campaign that the marketing had nearly completely ignored, overshadowing the lackluster multiplayer. The single player campaign was so highly acclaimed that it alone led the game to win numerous GOTY awards.

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