Latest news with #Doom:TheDarkAges
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Business
- Gizmodo
Nvidia GeForce Now Steam Deck Review: The Best Way to Play AAA PC Games on Handheld
As much as I treasure the Steam Deck as my closest gaming companion, the handheld's limitations will inevitably become more stark with time. Valve's handheld PC is still one of the cheapest of its class. It's comfortable, relatively light, and provides a beautiful picture with the OLED screen (if you have that model like I do). But when I'm struggling to play graphically intensive titles without making my precious handheld feel ill, streaming has proved an antidote to my woes. Nvidia's GeForce Now streaming games service now sports a full native Steam Deck app, and it has become my favorite way to play today's slate of ultra-hyped games from the comfort of my couch. Performance isn't everything, especially for something as portable as a handheld. The Steam Deck is still one of the best devices for playing less-intensive titles, but that doesn't mean the hardware isn't looking long in the tooth. Getting stable performance out of recent titles like Doom: The Dark Ages on the 3-year-old device has proved impossible. I've played games like Metaphor: Refantazio on Steam Deck—90 hours from beginning to end—and even though that game wasn't pushing pixels to their limit, I still experienced sluggish performance in Metaphor's open areas. Nvidia previously declared it would bring a dedicated GeForce Now app to Meta Quest, Apple Vision Pro, and Steam Deck. The company gave me early access to the app in the few weeks before launch, and it's been seamless enough I don't think I can go back. I was already smitten with Razer Cortex for Windows PC-to-handheld streaming, but for simplicity's sake, GeForce Now is the reigning champion of simple and seamless streaming on a SteamOS handheld. Nvidia could not confirm if the app will work on the upcoming Lenovo Legion Go S running SteamOS. We would be surprised if Nvidia doesn't provide some support for Lenovo's 1200p-resolution handheld in the future. You could previously use GeForce Now running on a Steam Deck, though it involved running the streaming service through a browser and setting up your own control bindings. SteamOS offers one of the most console-like experiences for handhelds, but downloading GeForce Now requires more finagling than searching for it on the Steam store. You need to load up your device into desktop mode and then download and install the app from Nvidia's website. After that, it will appear on the Steam Deck menu's 'Non-Steam' folder. Playing my Steam Deck with the app was a godsend for battery life. If I can normally barely squeak two hours out of a 3D game on my Steam Deck OLED running natively, I managed to do around four to five hours before I even noticed my device needed to be plugged in. The browser-based app has several limitations, including limiting the display resolution to 1440p. The Steam Deck app allows for 4K resolutions and a max of 60 fps if you're paying for the Ultimate subscription. That's still not the full extreme of 120 fps on the PC app, though at least the handheld version supports HDR10 and Nvidia Reflex. Nvidia told me they were considering upgrading the max fps to 90, but for the sake of using the app on handheld devices, the 60 fps ceiling is workable. That limit means it doesn't even matter if the game is running Nvidia's DLSS 4 AI upscaling. On the latest Steam Deck's OLED display, I didn't spot any distortion that can appear on in-game visuals when using the app through the browser-based app. Steam Decks are made to play your Steam library. That doesn't mean you can't play games through Xbox, Epic Games Store, or GOG, but it's more difficult, and I have encountered a few compatibility issues with the Steam Deck's Proton compatibility layer. GeForce Now becomes the easiest way to access all your games spread out across all platforms. Xbox recently added the option to stream your games through GeForce Now rather than Microsoft's own servers. I combined my Game Pass subscription with Nvidia's streaming app to play Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on Steam Deck, which proved far more stable than using Game Pass on Steam Deck with the browser app. Doom: The Dark Ages, unfortunately, claims it needs a driver update and remains unplayable. Nvidia's app also makes the Steam Deck a far more capable handheld if you combine it with a 4K display. Unlike the mobile app, the version for Steam Deck includes options for resolutions above 1440p. This requires at least 45 Mbps internet speeds if you want to maintain the max 60 fps (you only need 25 Mbps for streaming at less than 1080p and 60 fps). I combined my Steam Deck with a dock hooked up to my TV through HDMI, and I found myself preferring to navigate SteamOS with the comfort of a controller from a couch than having to switch to a keyboard and mouse on Windows. The big limitation of 60 fps means that a Steam Deck in docked mode has fewer capabilities than it does on PC or even an Nvidia Shield streaming box. It's my new choice for streaming on my TV, although at $100 for the Ultimate subscription, I can't imagine it should be your first choice if you want to dedicate GeForce Now for Steam Deck. The free version has limits of 1-hour sessions and limits resolution to 1080p, which doesn't matter nearly as much since the Steam Deck's max resolution is 1,280 x 800, but ads are the real reason you may want to consider a 'Performance' subscription for $30 in the first six months. If you consider the price of buying a more capable handheld, especially as they get more expensive, streaming starts to seem that much more attractive.
Irish Post
2 days ago
- Business
- Irish Post
How Did the Irish Video Game Industry Perform During 2024?
OVER the past few years, the video game industry in Ireland has been steadily growing for reasons we will be discussing here. The iGaming industry, which encompasses professional video gaming events, aka eSports events, is also on the rise, plus more people than ever are enjoying playing on legally permitted casino sites with thousands of computer-generated and live dealer games from various award-winning software providers and game development studios. Let's dive straight in and take a closer look at how the Irish video game industry performed during 2024 and whether it fell short of or exceeded industry analyst expectations. Did the video game industry in Ireland perform well in 2024? Yes. The video game industry in Ireland had its best-ever year in 2024, generating well over €600 million in revenue. By the end of 2027, expert analysts project that technologies like cloud gaming will help push this figure even higher to around €810 million. According to the latest reports, more than half of all Irish adults actively participate in one form of gaming from their preferred consoles, smartphones, tablets, laptops, or desktop computers, and they play everything from triple-A blockbuster video games to online slot machines and from casual/Indie games to puzzlers and sports simulation video games. Which video game companies are based in Ireland? Ireland is home to several small independent game development studios and software providers, as well as much larger, more well-established gaming companies. Examples of video game companies with offices in Ireland are the following: Riot Games Activision WarDucks Demonware EA Playrix Pewter Games Studios Havok Others include Virtuous, Keyword Studios, DIGIT Game Studios, Boon Studios Lt, Wildlife Studios, Squareroot Solutions, and Romero Games, to name a few. Why is Ireland's video game industry such a success? Ireland's video game industry is a huge success and is currently performing better than expected due to several key factors. For example, Ireland is now home to a growing pool of talented and highly skilled individuals, a well-matured tech scene that's hospitable to startup companies, plenty of support from the government via several initiatives, and an ever-expanding gaming culture. Over the past few years, Ireland has repositioned itself as a rising hub in the global gaming scene, and the future looks promising. Tax credits and other incentives, supportive government policies, and local and international investment have all helped the gaming industry in Ireland reach extraordinary new heights. What are the most popular new video games being played in Ireland in 2025? Some of the most popular new video games currently being played in Ireland include titles such as Assassin's Creed Shadows, Atomfall, Borderlands 4, Doom: The Dark Ages, Split Fiction, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. Other hit titles that are currently trending in 2025 are Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, Civilization VII, South of Midnight, Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves, and Hell Is Us. There's also Little Nightmares III, Crimson Desert, Fable, Eternal Strands, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and Elden Ring Nightreign, to name just a few. Conclusion Thanks to cloud gaming, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and various other key technologies, Ireland's video game industry is poised to grow even more over the coming years. Ireland provides a pro-business environment for gaming companies, with many talented individuals gaining their qualifications from renowned universities to specialise in various key areas of the digital entertainment sector, such as art & design and technology. Ireland also has a strong gaming culture that continues to grow, and as the gaming sector expands over the next five to ten years, it will assert itself as a true leader in the global gaming arena.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Doom: The Dark Ages does what Doom does best, forging carnage in a forge of chaos
Don't you think video games are getting too complicated? Every title coming out these days feel compelled to drop me into a 200-hour increasingly cinematic sandbox filled with fetch quests that demand dozens of hours exploring vast open worlds for what, just to kill off the bad guy for world peace? Well, Doom: The Dark Ages is exactly that but it's honest about it, and bluntly effective. After years of watching the franchise from the sidelines, occasionally nodding along to Mick Gordon's brutal soundtracks without context, I finally dove headfirst into it. What I discovered wasn't just my entry point into the series, but a reminder of why sometimes the most sophisticated gaming experiences come wrapped in the simplest packages. The Dark Ages positions itself as a prequel to the modern Doom trilogy, casting the legendary Slayer in a medieval-meets-sci-fi setting where alien overlords, demonic hordes, and humanity's last defenders clash across sprawling battlefields. The premise couldn't be more straightforward: you are an unstoppable force of nature, demons exist, and your job is to make them not exist anymore. No moral complexity, no branching dialogue trees, no companion approval ratings to manage. Just pure, undiluted aggression channeled through increasingly creative methods of digital violence. What struck me immediately was how liberating this clarity felt. In a gaming landscape increasingly obsessed with cinematic storytelling and player choice consequences, The Dark Ages presents a different philosophy entirely. The Slayer speaks exactly one word throughout the entire campaign, yet his character development through body language and environmental storytelling proves more compelling than most fully-voiced protagonists. There's something profoundly satisfying about a character who solves every problem by hitting it really, really hard with medieval weaponry. Rip and tear, stand and fight by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Click Here - This Might Save You From Losing Money Expertinspector Click Here Undo The Dark Ages' isn't very good with it's storytelling but let's honest it doesn't really need to be. Instead, it is the Doom's ages old combat formula, which is subtly evolved but still maintain its frenetic DNA. The introduction of the Shield Saw fundamentally changes how encounters unfold, shifting from Doom Eternal's emphasis on constant movement to a "stand and fight" mentality that initially sounds counterintuitive to everything the franchise represents. Yet somehow, it works brilliantly. While shields have mostly been known to be defensive equipment to humans, for the Slayer, it's a weapon, traversal tool, and tactical game-changer rolled into one circular buzzsaw of destruction. Parrying incoming attacks feels satisfying in a way that transcends mere mechanical feedback; there's a rhythm to combat that emerges naturally as you learn to balance aggression with precise timing. Unlike the rigid resource management that sometimes made Doom Eternal feel like solving an equation under pressure, The Dark Ages allows for more improvisational approaches to demon disposal. The weapon roster adapts familiar tools to the medieval setting without losing their essential character. The Super Shotgun remains the close-quarters king, but new additions like the skull-spitting gatling gun and chain-attached railgun offer fresh approaches to crowd control and armour piercing. Each weapon feels purposeful rather than redundant, contributing to a combat system that rewards experimentation without punishing players who develop preferences. What impressed me most was how the game manages to feel both more accessible than its predecessor while maintaining tactical depth. The shield bash's traversal capabilities replace Eternal's air dash system seamlessly, while the parry mechanics add a layer of skill expression that never feels mandatory for success. It's a delicate balance that many action games struggle with, providing systems that enhance experienced play without alienating newcomers. Hell on earth (but make it medieval) Beyond the moment-to-moment combat, The Dark Ages succeeds in creating environments that justify their existence beyond being demon-killing arenas. The level design strikes an excellent balance between linear progression and exploratory freedom, with larger hub areas offering multiple objectives and secrets to discover at your own pace. These aren't the overwhelming open worlds that dominate modern gaming, but focused playgrounds that reward curiosity without overwhelming players with busy work. The medieval aesthetic could have easily felt like a gimmicky departure from the series' established visual language, but id Software wisely blends fantasy elements with the technological underpinnings that define Doom's universe. Watching massive mechs stomp across castle battlefields while dragons soar overhead creates moments of genuine spectacle that feel earned rather than manufactured. These setpiece moments, while not always mechanically perfect, serve their purpose as palate cleansers between the more intense combat encounters. The game's approach to progression also deserves mention for how it respects player time. Upgrades feel meaningful without being overwhelming, and the currency systems are straightforward enough that you're never confused about what you need or where to get it. Secrets are well-integrated into level design, offering genuine rewards for exploration without requiring exhaustive searching to find every hidden item. When glory kills actually feel glorious Perhaps what surprised me most about The Dark Ages was how it made me reconsider my relationship with action games in general. I've spent years gravitating toward narrative-heavy experiences, convinced that emotional investment required complex storytelling and character development. The Dark Ages demonstrates that engagement can come from perfectly tuned mechanics and clear, achievable goals just as effectively as any branching storyline. The game's violence is cartoonish in the best possible way—so over-the-top that it transcends any concerns about real-world implications and becomes pure digital catharsis. There's an almost meditative quality to chaining together perfect parries, weapon swaps, and glory kills that creates its own form of flow state. The feedback loop is immediate and satisfying: see demon, devise elimination method, execute plan, admire results, repeat. This isn't to say The Dark Ages completely abandons narrative ambition. The wordless characterisation of the Slayer, the environmental storytelling embedded in each level, and the broader mythology all contribute to a surprisingly coherent world. But these elements serve the gameplay rather than demanding attention in their own right, creating a more integrated experience than many games that pride themselves on their storytelling. The campaign's 22-chapter structure maintains excellent pacing throughout its roughly 20-hour runtime, never allowing any single element to overstay its welcome. Even the occasional mech and dragon sequences, while mechanically simpler than the core combat, provide necessary variety and spectacle without derailing the overall experience. The sound of silence (and chainsaws) If there's one area where The Dark Ages stumbles, it's in the audio department. While I haven't really spent hours slaying on Mick Gordon's composition, yet somehow his absence is immediately noticeable, and I guess it would be even more so for someone who have been a regular of series' previous entires. While Finishing Move's soundtrack is competent, it lacks the driving intensity that made Gordon's work such an integral part of the Doom experience. The music often fades into background noise rather than amplifying the on-screen chaos, a significant departure from how seamlessly audio and gameplay integrated in previous entries. This isn't a fatal flaw, but it does represent a missed opportunity to elevate already excellent gameplay with equally excellent audio design. The sound effects themselves remain top-tier, every shotgun blast, demon roar, and shield clang carries appropriate weight, but the musical backing never quite matches the energy of what's happening on screen. Until it is done (for now) Doom: The Dark Ages succeeds as both an entry point for newcomers and a worthy addition to an established franchise by remembering that complexity and sophistication aren't synonymous. It knows exactly what it wants to be and executes that vision with laser focus. Now I understand what I'd been missing all these years. The Dark Ages doesn't just serve as my belated introduction to the series, it's a masterclass in why Doom has endured for over three decades. What I initially dismissed as mindless violence revealed itself as carefully orchestrated chaos, where every system works in harmony to create something greater than the sum of its parts. The sophistication I'd been seeking in complex narratives and sprawling worlds was here all along, hidden beneath layers of demon viscera and shotgun shells. This realisation feels almost embarrassing in hindsight. I'd spent years chasing elaborate gaming experiences, convinced that depth required complexity, when Doom was quietly perfecting the art of elegant simplicity. The Dark Ages strips away every unnecessary element to focus entirely on what matters: the pure joy of interactive entertainment. No padding, no filler, no respect for your time wasted on anything that doesn't contribute to the core experience. In a year likely to be dominated by sprawling open worlds and narrative epics, Doom : The Dark Ages offers something increasingly rare: a game that respects your time, trusts your intelligence, and never forgets that fun should be the primary objective. Sometimes that's exactly what hell ordered. Our rating: 4/5 AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Time of India
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
How to Get All Weapons in Doom The Dark Ages
Image via: Bethesda Weapons are not just about brute force in Doom: The Dark Ages. The Doom Slayer is a raving manifestation and thus a strategic arsenal in motion. Survival is hence about mastering any weapon the game throws at you, rather than fist-smashing skulls or shield-crushing bones. And there are plenty of them. Unlocking new weapons in every chapter, here's all of them that can be acquired, and the uses for them. The Arsenal Begins: Weapons by Chapter Weapons in Doom: The Dark Ages are not given away like candy; they are earned with story progression, dropped from pods, or unlocked through environment-based puzzles. Here is a rundown of how weapons enter your hands: The first chapter opens spectacularly and dishes three must-have weapons: Combat Shotgun, Power Gauntlet, and Shredder. They establish a sort of "mid-range fury and ammo recovery" sort of feeling. It is between Chapters 2 and 6 that your core playstyle in the Shield Saw, Accelerator, Cycler, and Super Shotgun is put to test-and traditionally help flip armored demons and shielded threats. Really deadly action starts from Chapter 8 onward when the weightier powers of heavy grenades, rockets, and crushing skulls of Ravager get loaded in your toolkit. Major late-game power spikes go to weapons from Atlan (Chapters 3 and 11), the Ballistic Force Crossbow (Chapter 14), and Dreadmace (Chapter 15). Doom: The Dark Ages - BEST Weapon Upgrades to Get First Choosing the Right Weapon for the Right Demon Localization of different weapons into different contributors means exploiting enemy weaknesses. Close-quarters brawlers: Time hits carefully when the Flail and the Power Gauntlet are face-to-face with demons, because their melee stacks recharge quite slowly. It can get you through the groups easily. Shield breakers: Accelerators and Cyclers overheat and wreck the shields so that their defenders cannot shield throw or heavy round. Crowd control: When the arenas fill with smaller enemies, the Pulverizer and ironically the Grenade Launcher dominate more. So this is when area-of-effect weapons really stand out. Precision kills: The Impaler and Ballistic Force Crossbow are your sniper kits. They should be used after stunning the enemies or clearing the field for breathing room. Mastering the Mecha: Atlan's Limited-Time Arsenal These interludes result in a drastic shift in gameplay, with primary emphases on timing and positioning. Perform dodges to charge Atlan's Machine Gun or Shotgun. These are non-customizable but give raw moments of giant-on-demon combat that feels satisfying and cinematic. DOOM : The Dark Ages - All Weapons Showcase Late-Game and Legendary Tools Ravager : Think Pulverizer, but focused. Good against elites. Ballistic Force Crossbow: Short ammo but devastating — keen on one shot against a boss. Hunt for hidden arrows and plan their use Dreadmace : The final melee unlock, the Dreadmace is a giant one-shot AoE monster. It has no combos but the big splash damage and style do make up for it. It's always tempting to get into a single wielding weapon, but mastery in Doom: The Dark Ages is in adaptability. Change your weapons often, read enemy types, and choose strategically rather than savagely. Your weapons are varied for a reason: every gun and every swing has the demon it is supposed to kill. Get IPL 2025 match schedules , squads , points table , and live scores for CSK , MI , RCB , KKR , SRH , LSG , DC , GT , PBKS , and RR . Check the latest IPL Orange Cap and Purple Cap standings.
The Star
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
The monster-slaying game you can play almost anywhere
You're a space marine. The mission is to shoot your way through a monster invasion unfolding on the moons of Mars. And the monsters? They come from hell. When Id Software – six mostly 20-somethings at the time – pitched this gleefully unhinged premise to prospective recruits in 1993, millions answered the call. The technically masterful, thrillingly glib video game that Id released online crashed Carnegie Mellon University's network within hours because so many students were playing. Two years later, actual Marines were using a version of it for training exercises, and it had purportedly been downloaded onto more computers than Windows 95, the newest PC operating system. The game was called Doom . Sequels, prequels and offshoots inevitably followed, including this month's Doom: The Dark Ages , with each new title bringing more resources to the pursuit of mass exorcism. But Doom 's most entertaining developments happen in the shadow of the franchise, where fans resurrect the original game over and over again on progressively stranger pieces of hardware: a Mazda Miata, a NordicTrack treadmill, a French pharmacy sign. These esoteric achievements quickly became a meme. Now they look more like a legacy. Doom defined the first-person shooter genre, put computer games on the map and helped ignite a graphics war. But what many hard-core tech hobbyists want to know is whether you can play it on a pregnancy test. The answer: positively yes. Id had programmed Doom to be easily modifiable by players. Four years after its debut, the company took the radical step of releasing the game's source code to the public for noncommercial use; an international community of fans suddenly had access to the guts of the game and could retrofit it to all kinds of hardware. 'It was not only a gracious move but an ideological one – a leftist gesture that empowered the people and, in turn, loosened the grip of corporations,' David Kushner wrote in his book Masters Of Doom . Coders called it the hacker ethic, and it also led to moments of inspired cross-cultural exchange. Doom has appeared on Dutch payment terminals and Australian ticket readers. Someone tracked down and refurbished a laptop from a Friends episode in which the character Chandler Bing refers to Doom , and then put Doom on it. Some fans simply cannot resist the pull of a Doom port – industry lingo for transferring software from one platform to another. Their ambition is not necessarily to play the game on these devices; it is more in line with the beckoning of Everest, or the draw of a Guinness World Record. Even the idea of Doom was itself a kind of port, a way to bring the speed and action of arcade games to a machine made for text documents and spreadsheets. A jaunty metal soundtrack, punctured only by the howls of the undead, drives players forward through industrial settings while they dispatch imps, zombies and Hell Knights. 'Everything in Doom pushes you toward strafing and sprinting, constant movement,' said Dan Pinchbeck, the creative director of the acclaimed games Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone To The Rapture . He compared the inexhaustible pleasure of Doom 's pace to entering a flow state, or performing ballet (with a double-barreled shotgun). 'The genius of it was saying, 'What if we get rid of anything which slows this experience down and we just put our foot to the floor and drive this thing as fast as we can?'' None of this happened by accident, of course. Ports were not incidental to Doom 's development. They were a core consideration. ' Doom was developed in a really unique way that lent a high degree of portability to its code base,' said John Romero, who programmed the game with John Carmack. (In our interview, he then reminisced about operating systems for the next 14 minutes.) Id had developed Wolfenstein 3D , the Nazi-killing predecessor to Doom , on PCs. To build Doom , Carmack and Romero used NeXT, the hardware and software company founded by Steve Jobs after his ouster from Apple in 1985. NeXT computers were powerful, selling for about US$25,000 apiece in today's dollars. And any game designed on that system would require porting to the more humdrum PCs encountered by consumers at computer labs or office jobs. This turned out to be advantageous because Carmack had a special aptitude for ports. All of Id's founders met as colleagues at Softdisk, which had hired Carmack because of his ability to spin off multiple versions of a single game. The group decided to strike out on its own after Carmack created a near-perfect replica of the first level of Super Mario Bros. 3 – Nintendo's bestselling platformer – on a PC. It was a wonder of software engineering that compensated for limited processing power with clever workarounds. 'This is the thing that everyone has,' Romero said of PCs. 'The fact that we could figure out how to make it become a game console was world changing.' Younger gamers, born into a world already consumed by software, may find Doom 's subversiveness appealing even when they lack nostalgia for its original context. In January, a high school junior named Allen Ding stumbled across a version of Tetris that someone had built to run as a PDF. Although he did not have much history with the Doom franchise, most of which preceded his birth, Ding's thoughts immediately ran there. So did a swarm of online commenters. 'There was kind of a large demand to see if it was possible,' Ding said. It took him about 10 hours to make it. (Around the same time, the creator of the Tetris port also developed his own version of Doom in a PDF. The culture of Doom ports is littered with latter-day Newtons and Leibnizes.) Ding posted his accomplishment to a Reddit community where more than 100,000 'slayers' applaud gratuitous new ports. 'It runs poorly and plays even worse,' Ian Walker, a journalist, wrote about Ding's feat. 'But it's a marvel to see in action.' Science fiction writer William Gibson once wrote that burgeoning technologies require outlaw zones: unmonitored spaces where risk-takers can follow their interests and theories to the fullest extent. So when those on the nascent Id team 'ported' their work computers, via the trunks of their cars, to a shared house on weekends to hotwire their new venture in secret, you could argue they were doing it on behalf of gamers everywhere. And they practiced what they preached. When Carmack's boss at Softdisk learned that his star employee had cracked the code to sidescrolling on a PC – the innovative feature that underpinned Super Mario Bros. and other console titles – he encouraged Carmack, then 19, to patent it. Carmack threatened to quit instead. Patents could be obstructive, snuffing out creativity before it had a chance to flower. Ports, on the other hand, were cross-pollinating. Ports were liberating. Ports also provided opportunities to learn. Carmack has said that while he fulfilled a contract to bring Wolfenstein 3D to the Super Nintendo, he discovered a method that drastically lowered the computational burden of rendering the graphics onscreen. The team immediately applied it to Romero's groundbreaking level design in Doom , which was already in development. Sloping floors, cavernous rooms and the illusion of verticality could funnel players through finely plotted spaces at speed, assuming that the game's engine kept up. Like the rigidity of a sonnet, hardware limitations inspired creative solutions. 'We were looking for speed on another platform,' Romero said. 'This was the way to do it.' Everything was downstream of speed. Faster rendering meant more sophisticated lighting and more gruesome carnage. It meant more intricate environments and more adrenalised gameplay. And it enabled a distribution model that made the Doom file ubiquitous on desktops from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Ljubljana, Slovenia. The first episode of the game was released by Id as a free digital download, with a phone number to call if you wanted to buy the rest. Less than 10% of users paid for the full game, but millions engaged with a large enough piece of it to propel Doom 's popularity without a single dollar spent on marketing. ' The Doom shareware version was everywhere in Slovenia, just like everywhere else around the world,' said Marko Stamcar, the head of laboratory at the Computer History Museum Slovenia in Ljubljana, the country's capital. While Stamcar is not an active Doom porter, he thought the phenomenon illustrated the pervasiveness of computers in cars and appliances, in health-care devices and industrial tools. Doom 's meme status has spurred deeper discussions about the penetration of tech into our everyday lives. It is a useful proxy for issues that resonate beyond gaming; the will to Doom abuts long-standing principles like the right to repair. 'It's like an itch,' Stamcar said. 'Why can't I own my own hardware?' In other words, why can't I sit in the John Deere tractor I paid for and use its digital interface to chain-gun some imps? In a world of constant tech encroachment, Doom is often hoisted as a flag of resistance. Optimise exercise? Eat my lead. Enhance productivity? Let it burn. The game's anti-corporate ethos and punk aesthetic give it a level of credibility rarely accorded to the medium. Pinchbeck compared Doom to the metal scene, which its creators idolized. They shared a core tenet: 'Don't accept rules at face value.' Romero founded a series of game studios after leaving Id in 1996 and is working on a new first-person shooter, the genre he and Carmack practically invented. He has no illusions about how it may stack up. 'I absolutely accept that Doom is the best game I'll ever make that has that kind of a reach,' he said. 'At some point you make the best thing.' Thirty years on, people are still making it. – ©2025 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
