It’s like you’re a banshee of speed, crawling up a fuse like a spark, waiting for disaster. A scarecrow turns into a man right in front of you, pointing a shotgun at you. You greet him with your own shotgun, double-barreled, finger on the trigger.
It was as if he was being engulfed by a bear hug of bullets and sound. Above you, the sky – already the red of a bloodhound’s dream – seemed even redder. One moment later, and you were gone.
A few recent games have harken back to the Doom and Quake eras and the invention of the first-person shooter genre, and Dusk is one of them. It’s no secret that “boomer shooters” such as Dusk, Amid Evil, and Ultrakill have awakened a hunger long thought dormant, and publisher New Blood Interactive is trying to feed it to us.
Dead to the bone
The 1993 shotgun blast that thundered through millions of American bedrooms, echoing across college dormitories and offices, cast firework bursts of light onto the faces of the witnesses.
It was so powerful that it survived a travel across the globe and back, withstanding entire generations without fading. The sound afflicted anyone who heard it with a strange illness: The desire to bully digital devils into piles of pulpy gore (bloody gibs).
Their discovery was Doom.
In 1993, Doom was released for the first time
There is no doubt that Doom is one of the most revered towering monuments for video game violence. The player takes on the role of a space marine, venturing through military bases and eventually into Hell itself, destroying rooms filled with demon invaders.
Earlier in 1992, Id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D had found success, combining 3D graphics with fast, first-person action gameplay. Together, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom helped create the first-person shooter genre, transforming PC gaming.
Raven Software’s Heretic (1994) and Hexen (1995) are also based on the engine of Doom, which has been used by countless users to make WADs – Doom lingo for mods. Instead of guns, players are equipped with flails and scepters in these dark fantasy-themed games.
This was the era of the “Doom clones.” After Rise of the Triad: Dark War (1995), Apogee – now 3D Realms – released Duke Nukem 3D (1996), a game now known for its hyperbolic humor referring to “dudebros”. Doom clones include Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995), Blood (1997), and Shadow Warrior (1997).
Duke Nukem 3D
Mechanically speaking, these games have high movement speeds, labyrinthine levels, and level “scores” measuring completion times and percentages (such as how many enemies or secrets the player found). Among the aesthetic similarities are bloodiness and animations reminiscent of slasher movies.
After 1994’s Doom II, Id Software broke new ground again with Quake in 1996, offering “true 3D” levels with vertical camera movements and the “deathmatch.” As a result of Quake II’s animated cutscenes and enhanced lighting effects, bullets became kamikaze fireflies in dim hallways.
During the ’90s, it seemed like Doom held the future in its hands. But over the next two decades, the FPS genre reinvented itself many times to accommodate market trends. The era of Doom clones faded away – until now.
Doom had first gripped the world 25 years ago when New Blood released David Szymanski’s Dusk in 2018. Indefatigable released Amid Evil the same year, and Doom and Quake’s influence can be felt in both games from the moment you train your weapon on your first bloodthirsty freak.
It’s not a Doom clone: it’s a boomer shooter.