I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ love this game. THIS is DOOM.
DOOM 2016 didn’t just revive the franchise—it came back swinging and made it bigger than ever. The guns, the demons, the guts, the music: everything was BIGGER and BADDER than before. Remember Doomguy? Yeah, now he’s the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ DOOM SLAYER.
Within the first thirty seconds, the game makes its intentions clear. This isn’t the survival horror of DOOM 3. This is the spirit of DOOM, DOOM II, and DOOM 64 dragged into the modern era, covered in blood, and handed a shotgun. One man alone on Mars against the forces of Hell, armed with the strength of a god and a hatred hotter than every ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ star in the universe.
And you FEEL it. the addition of Glory Kills let you physically tear demons in half with your bare hands, while Mick Gordon apparently decided he was the reincarnation of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and started playing his guitar like he was composing the next ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Every fight feels like you’re personally reminding Hell why it should be afraid of you.
But the gameplay and music aren’t the only things that make DOOM 2016 great. Its story is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awesome, and it’s only gotten better with time. The Dark Ages gives you even more context for the absolute force of nature waking up in that sarcophagus. Meanwhile, 2016 introduces some of the coolest characters and concepts in the franchise: the Night Sentinels, the Wraiths, Argent energy, and Samuel Hayden.
Hayden spends the entire game roleplaying as Robot Bill Clinton, explaining why harvesting Hell’s energy is actually a great idea. Considering what we eventually learn about where that energy comes from, I guess bro REALLY didn’t want to build a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ windmill.
The level design deserves just as much praise. The environments are massive and packed with alternate routes, hidden rooms, and secrets, while still giving you a clear path forward if you just want to keep killing ♥♥♥♥. You can spend your time exploring every corner or charge straight toward the next fight. Either way, the game delivers.
It even brings back the kind of secrets that made the originals so much fun. Finding weapons before you’re supposed to get them? Hell yeah. References to games like Skyrim, Wolfenstein, and Commander Keen? Those are here too. There are even hidden classic DOOM areas throughout the campaign, complete with those old-school textures. Finding them unlocks classic maps you can play separately, because apparently making an incredible DOOM game wasn’t enough—they had to stuff even more DOOM inside it.
That’s what I love about this game. It understands the appeal of the originals and puts everything it has into making that feeling hit harder than ever. The combat, exploration, atmosphere, and music all feed into the same glorious experience: you are the worst ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing that has ever happened to Hell.
DOOM 2016 is one of the best games of all time, and I’ll die on that hill.
Thank you to Hugo Martin and the incredible team at id Software for reviving my favorite franchise and helping build a modern era of DOOM that I’ll be playing for the rest of my life.
