Doom

In Doom game, players assume the role of an unnamed space marine, who became popularly known as “Doomguy”, fighting his way through hordes of invading demons from Hell. Play Doom online!

Doom made a massive global impact: it popularized the business model of online distribution; it popularized the FPS genre of gameplay and spawned a gaming subculture; and it pioneered the technologies of immersive 3D graphics, networked multiplayer gaming, and support for customized additions and modifications via packaged files in a data archive (“WADs“) which are now called downloadable content (DLC).

The Doom franchise continued with the follow-up Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994) and numerous expansion packs, including Master Levels for Doom II (1995) and Final Doom (1996). Originally released for MS-DOS, those games have been ported to numerous other platforms.

The video game Doom officially turns 25 years old today. It was released in its entirety on December 10, 1993, and quickly became the game to put first-person shooters (FPS) on the map. Today, these video games are big business.

The game’s idea was simple: You’re a space marine stationed at a scientific research facility on Mars. Demons have attacked, and you’re one of the last four people standing. Your mission: Kill demons, save Earth.

Instead of popular games before it, where you watched characters like Mario jump through an 8-bit world, you were the character. There was suddenly a three-dimensional world where you could run around and explore, and you saw the muzzle of your gun flare as you blasted away hellspawn. (Doom was also revolutionary when it was released for free in 1992, a blueprint followed by games like Fortnite, because its accessibility made the first-person shooter popular.)

“Gore, guns and braggadocio,” is how Simon Parkin summed it up for the Guardian. “

This trio of male power fantasies helped to define and, arguably, tar, an entire medium.”There’s no denying Doom’s impact ripples well beyond the gaming industry.

But even now, decades after its launch, it has begun to manifest powers that may shape our world to come: The game has become a teaching tool for artificial intelligence algorithms.