World Design Exercise: Game #10 (DOOM 2016)

Ever since its golden pioneering days as a quintessential first-person shooter, Doom was all about being over the top and absurd in its ultra-violence and fast-paced action.

Far removed from the more atmospheric previous entry of the long-standing Doom franchise, the latest addition pays loving homage to the original run-and-gun playstyle of the series, focusing more on the gratuitous gunning, hacking and punching of seemingly endless hordes of demons.

We can in a way compare the overall pacing of the latest Doom title and Doom 3, as previously mentioned prior, Doom 3 relied heavily on the foundation of atmospheric horror and the unfolding of an emergent narrative surrounding the UAC, thus we can perceive its pacing akin to the three act structure found mostly in other popular media such as films. In comparison to the later Doom title, Id Software’s Marty Stratton mentioned that while the game does try to keep the audience engaged with the overarching plot of the game, “story isn’t first and foremost” this time around as demon killing and “an amazing time” (Henaghan, 2016) takes precedence. Therefore, one would assume that due to the game’s more old-fashioned run-and-gun format, its pacing would have far more up and down episodes than say a consistent onward flow upwards while it is quite the contrary.

Fig 1. All of the classics are back and re-imagined, closer to its original more fast-paced predecessor in the new Doom title.

That is to say, even though these two games possess different approaches (even with the shared umbrella terminology as violent first-person shooters of the classic Doom franchise), which would result in almost entirely different experiences for their players, it is unfair to say that just because Doom ‘16’s is far more erratic and fast-paced means that it is mutually exclusive from following the standard three act structure.

Even with these differences, in the grand scheme of things and amongst the chaotic feel of the game, Doom ’16 does follow what Extra Credits’ James Portnow explains as the layered composition of what makes the overall pacing of a game (namely the arc, scene and the action) (Shepard, 2014) in a fairly concise and structured manner. If we are to say break down the very first chapter of Doom, the arc represents the overall plot that will play out as the player progresses, a scene is the opening chapter (or level) itself and the action interprets the individual actions of the player as smaller, but almost identical, processes of the much bigger arc (such as the rising anticipation of the player picking up their pistol and firing it for the first time in the tutorial level).

Fig 2 & 3. Despite the more chaotic run-and-gun nature of Doom '16, there is a clear structure to the way the game flows.

In a sense, while Doom is chaotic in nature, it is organized chaos as the engagement of the player are dictated by numerous factors of game designs such as the implementation of well-designed levels, countless hordes of demon to gun through (punctuated by moments of rest and terse build-ups), it is these moments of see-sawing between rest, rip and tear that keeps the player engaged and coming back for more.


REFERENCES:

Henaghan, L. Doom 2016. Retrieved from http://www.stuff.co.nz/content/dam/images/1/b/h/w/i/v/image.related.StuffLandscapeSixteenByNine.620x349.1bhf4n.png/1462760596353.jpg

Henaghan, L. (2016, May 9). Doom developer Marty Stratton talks guns, gore and gorgeous graphics. Retrieved from http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/games/79754711/Doom-developer-Marty-Stratton-talks-guns-gore-and-gorgeous-graphics

Shepard, M. (2014, April 29). Interactive Storytelling - Narrative Techniques and Methods in Video Games. Retrieved http://scalar.usc.edu/works/interactive-storytelling-narrative-techniques-and-methods-in-video-games/pacing

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