There are folks on the market – precise human beings – who assume Gordon Freeman is without doubt one of the finest video game characters of all time.
That’s the Gordon Freeman who doesn’t say a phrase in two and a half games. The Gordon Freeman who has no limbs. The Gordon Freeman who’s, in sensible phrases, a sentient crowbar. This is the man who begins Half-Life by being 30 minutes late to work, leading to a rupture of the space-time continuum and releasing a race of hostile aliens upon the planet. Hero.
So why do folks resonate a lot with a floating digital camera? It’s the legend behind the person.
Gordon Freeman turns into a frontrunner of the human resistance: a hero of our species, who turns up and pushes again the alien menace wherever he’s wanted. He won’t say something, however meaning you – sure, you! – are the person and the parable. He’s not a lot of a personality, however you’re at all times conscious of who you embody. It contextualises the setting.
This is what was lacking from my first makes an attempt at Doom 2016. Don’t get me fallacious, I loved Doom – I cherished skating round arenas and gibbing demons and far as the following individual, nevertheless it felt like that was all there was to it. You transfer from one enviornment to the following, switching between weapons and tearing aside the hordes of hell with an ever-expanding arsenal, sometimes leaping throughout gaps as you go. Mechanically, it was nice, nevertheless it was lacking one thing I struggled to place my finger on till not too long ago. It was lacking a way of self.
To me, Doom’s protagonist has at all times been Doomguy: a chisel-jawed marine with the persona of a wealthy tea biscuit. When I wakened in Doom and began taking pictures up the hordes of Hell, I used to be nonetheless that jarhead in my headcanon. Doom solely clicked for me after I understood the Doomslayer.
There’s a cause id Software modified Doomguy’s title to one thing extra befitting. He’s not that grunt anymore. Of course, that is one thing I’d have discovered if I didn’t take a look at simply earlier than I reached Hell and located this recording:
“In the first age, in the first battle, when the shadows first lengthened, one stood. Burned by the embers of armageddon, his soul blistered by the fires of Hell and tainted beyond ascension, he chose the path of perpetual torment. In his ravenous hatred he found no peace; and with boiling blood he scoured the Umbral Plains seeking vengeance against the dark lords who had wronged him. He wore the crown of the Night Sentinels, and those that tasted the bite of his sword named him… the Doomslayer.”
Doomslayer is a time-travelling, demon-killing drive. He’s a person (or is he?) who’s so scary that the military of Hell locked him inside a magical sarcophagus as a result of they couldn’t kill him. With each kill, he grows stronger. His rage by no means subsides. Doomslayer is Gordon Freeman if Gordon Freeman wasn’t horrible (and had limbs).
He’s not a traditional human, because it says in one other audiolog you could find later in Doom:
“And in his conquest against the blackened souls of the doomed, his prowess was shown. In his crusade, the seraphim bestowed upon him terrible power and speed, and with his might he crushed the obsidian pillars of the Blood Temples. He set forth without pity upon the beasts of the nine circles. Unbreakable, incorruptible, unyielding, the Doomslayer sought to end the dominion of the dark realm.”
He was already fairly badass, however his powers got to him by angels – he’s actually an instrument of God. Doomslayer is Jesus with a brilliant shotgun.
Looking into the lore totally enhances your Doom expertise. All the little quirks of his persona, every considered one of them proven by his actions – whether or not it’s impatiently tearing a pc terminal off its hinges or destroying argent power filters – and it paints an image of this unstoppable drive.
Doom Eternal is popping out later this 12 months and it seems to be like id Software is doubling down on these items. In the reveal trailer, we see Doomslayer stroll right into a management room stuffed with scientists and troopers. He scans a keycard whereas it’s nonetheless connected to a terrified civilian’s neck and he snatches a gun from a guard. Nobody can contact him and he provides exactly zero shits. If you aren’t positive who this man is by now, you solely must look into the eyes of the folks he interacts with. Their expressions inform you every little thing it is advisable to know: you’re one scary bastard.
If id Software can construct on this whereas marrying this delicate character constructing with the wonderful gunplay of Doom 2016, Doom Eternal might be one for the ages.
Source