The original Doom is a game that I hold very dear. For a game that released around the time of my birth, it’s weird that I hold so much love for a game so old. As I’ve mentioned in a previous article, I believe that someone who is passionate on a certain subject should consume content that is before their time. Especially people interested in history…that’s a bit important.
I own the 1993 Doom on nearly every platform I can get a hold of it on. My phone, my tablet, Xbox, Xbox 360…I have it backward compatible on Xbox One…PC, original PlayStation, even the Game Boy Advance! Doom was and is a mastery of level design and art direction that to this day remains one of the best first-person shooters you can play.
Even though occasionally I’ll throw so many mods into Doom that the original game is barely breathing inside,these mods, such as Brutal Doom, just breathe new life into a game that’s already amazing. In my opinion, no game stands the test of time more than this game does. I remember when I was a child, this game scared me so much due to mobs spawning in hidden corridors behind walls that I would have to check the walls of my bedroom just in case an imp or Cyberdemon decided to live in there for a little while. Point is, I love Doom!
I think that you can already tell that when the Doom reboot was announced at the start of 2014–revealed in a trailer for Wolfenstein: The New Order–I was squealing more than a teenage fangirl at a Justin Bieber concert. The main reason I even got Wolfenstein was because I was promised access to the Doom beta. I was then graced with access to the closed alpha which I was pleasantly surprised with and now, after two long years, I’ve finally had my grubby mitts all over the new beta for Doom.
For as simplistic as the new Doom is, it still feels fresh. After hours with the two maps in Doom’s beta I’m still discovering small nooks and crannies full of armour shards, health and ammo boxes. Power-ups like quad-damage are back, albeit on a much stricter timer than the original Doom or Quake would’ve ever had. There’s even a double-jump now; which you’ll have to combine with the clamber ability to climb in vents or other hard to reach areas. While this sounds, and is, more complex than the original arena shooters of the nineties, Doom 2016 achieves two things. One, a sense of pure speed. Two, the feel of classic Doom.
The speed of new Doom is incredible. You skate around the map, strafing around corners and boosting up into the air; gunning down anyone in sight. When you’re playing as the demonic Revenant; the jetpack on your back just makes everything faster. There’s no end to the pure adrenaline feeling that Doom gives you as you circle-strafe your way around cragged pillars coated with dark blood in the depths of Hell. The guns are fast too! Shooting with the signature shotgun will always empty both barrels at once. Who has time for just one?
Oh, and that classic Doom feeling I mentioned? This game is drenched in it. The blood-drenched hallways, the way that bodies explode when shot and, most importantly, the way your reticule very rarely leaves the centre of the screen. Watch the slew of Doom montages or have a little gawp at the Doom subreddit. Most of the videos that you’ll see, not counting melee executions or snipers, will force you to notice quite quickly that as players swiftly move around the map, very rarely does that crosshair leave the middle of the screen.
That is the most important aspect of new Doom that makes it feel like old Doom. Unless you’re playing the original on an engine that allows free-look, the original Doom won’t even allow you to look up or down. Your crosshair—or lack of crosshair in most versions—can’t even move along a vertical axis. That’s the glorious part of this reboot. It feels like I’m playing the classic game I love with all of the benefits of modern gaming, in the multiplayer at least. Everything I’ve played so far, from the weapons to the map to the customization, is everything I wanted from a modern take on Doom’s multiplayer.
That’s not to say that the game is perfect. During my experience with the beta I’ve noticed the appearance of screen-tearing quite often and I haven’t played even a shred of the single-player yet. But, if the minor problems with the games performance are fixed, the single-player is up to scratch and the SnapMap level creator is as awesome as its shaping up to be, Doom may just be the game I’ve wanted for years. I just really, really hope it is.
But sadly, until Doom releases on May 13th, we’ll have no idea as to what kind of quality we’ll see from the other aspects of the game or even the remainder of the multiplayer. While this installment looks like it’s shaping up to be a great love letter to the original two Doom games, we’ll have to wait until release, or until the review embargo lifts, to see what kind of game the finished package is after id Software wraps everything up in a nice bow. What I do know though is that this beta is one of the finest betas I’ve played and I’m off to play more.
Lewis is a games journalist, freelance gaming and consumer-tech journalist. They contributed 344 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: has since served as Editor-in-Chief at StealthOptional and Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser, with bylines at Gfinity Esports and FRVR.